A French court on Monday sentenced right-wing leader Marine Le Pen to jail and barred her from seeking public office again for five years, preventing her from running in France’s 2027 presidential election after she was found guilty of embezzlement.
A member of the French Parliament, Le Pen and others were accused of misusing 4.4 million euros, or $4.8 million, in European Parliament funds to pay staff who were working for her National Rally party. In violation of European Union regulations, the alleged embezzlement occurred between 2004 and 2016. She was found guilty alongside eight members of Parliament and twelve assistants. The French right-wing leader has denied any wrongdoing.
Le Pen faces a prison sentence of four years, with two of those years suspended; a $108,000 fine; and ineligibility to run for office for five years, effective immediately. She is expected to appeal the ruling.
But even if she does appeal, the political ban will likely remain in place unless she is victorious. Meanwhile, her prison sentence will be suspended during the appeals process. The ban doesn’t affect her parliamentary position.
The court condemned her actions as “a serious and lasting attack on the rules of democratic life in Europe, but especially in France,” Judge Bénédicte de Perthuis said.
The defendant left the courtroom before the verdict was read out in full, according to reports. She appeared on national television in France for an interview later Monday.
In the interview, Le Pen maintained her innocence and suggested that the judge presiding over the case was interfering in the European nation’s next presidential election.
“I’m going to appeal because I’m innocent. We’re all innocent,” she spoke of herself and the other convicted defendants.
Le Pen unsuccessfully ran for the French presidency in 2012, 2017, and 2022, and was widely expected to run again in two years after she and her party led the public opinion polls for the 2027 election. The left-wing incumbent, Emmanuel Macron, is unable to seek public office again after his second consecutive term ends in 2027.
Right-wing European allies have offered support for the three-time presidential candidate, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban sending a message of solidarity on social media. Jordan Bardella, who succeeded Le Pen as president of the National Rally in 2022, said, “Today, it is not only Marine Le Pen who is being unjustly condemned: it is French democracy that is being executed.”
The Le Pen family has been involved in French politics for decades. Marine’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, led the National Rally from 1972 to 2011. Marine subsequently took his place in 2011 and served as the party’s president for the next eleven years.
Jean-Marie, 96, died in January after suffering suspected heart problems.
The National Rally party took off on the political scene when Marine took over. During her tenure, she began distancing herself from her father’s denial of the Holocaust and sympathy for France’s Vichy regime, which collaborated with Nazi Germany after France’s defeat in 1940 during World War II.
Since then, the party has been trying to rebrand itself. Its new leader, Bardella, has come out against the party’s history of antisemitism. The young National Rally president visited Israel last week to distance the party from its antisemitic roots and took a public stand against Islam amid Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza.