Marine Le Pen, the figurehead of the ascendant far-right political movement in France, was hit with a non-custodial prison sentence and barred from running in elections for five years on Monday as a court found her guilty of embezzling European Union funds to pay members of her National Rally party’s staff. In handing down the sentence, the judge said the public office ban would take effect immediately.
“The court took into consideration, in addition to the risk of reoffending, the major disturbance of public order if a person already convicted … was a candidate in the presidential election,” judge Benedicte de Perthuis, was quoted as saying by the French news agency AFP.
De Perthuis also sentenced Le Pen to four years in prison but said that part of her sentence would be served as house arrest, with her wearing an electronic tag, not in a prison. The judge suspended two of the four years of the prison sentence. He also fined her more than $100,000.
Le Pen, speaking to French TV channel TF1 in her first reaction to the verdict, said she would appeal and called the ruling a “political” move aimed at preventing her from running in the 2027 presidential election.
She said the court should not have made her ineligible to run for office until all her chances at appeal had been exhausted.
“If that’s not a political decision, I don’t know what is,” she said.
Le Pen would remain ineligible to be a candidate until the appeal is decided, but the house arrest and fine would be suspended during the appeals process.
Le Pen said she would ask that the court proceedings take place before the 2027 campaign. Only an appellate ruling that overturns the ban on public office could restore her hopes of running. But, there’s no guarantee that an appeals court would rule more favorably, and appeals in France can take several years to conclude.
Rodolphe Bosselut, Le Pen’s lawyer, said he was “appalled” by the court’s decision, calling it “extremely scandalous.” He also vowed to launch an appeal against the guilty verdict.
Recent polling has shown Le Pen likely would have won at least a first round in France’s next national election, though it is much less clear how she would have fared in a second round against a more moderate candidate.
Far-right political figures across Europe — including the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders and Italy’s Matteo Salvini — condemned the verdict Monday.
In Russia, meanwhile, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed Le Pen’s sentencing was evidence of European nations “going down the path of trampling over democratic norms.”
“Of course, we do not want to interfere in France’s internal affairs, we have never done so, and this is France’s internal affair,” said Peskov, “but in general, our observations of European capitals show that they are not at all reluctant to go beyond democracy during the political process.”
Le Pen, 56, garnered 41% of the ballots in the last French presidential election in 2022 — beaten decisively by current President Emmanuel Macron — and she has made no secret of her desire to run again for the nation’s highest office.
Sat in the front row of the Paris court, Le Pen whispered “incredible” as the judge detailed his reasoning for the guilty verdict. She walked out of the court before the sentences were announced.
Le Pen, along with eight current or former party members, had faced up to 10 years in prison on the embezzlement charges. A dozen others who served as parliamentary aides for the National Rally party, formerly the National Front, also received guilty verdicts for their role in the scheme.
The judge said Le Pen and her colleagues did not enrich themselves personally but called the embezzlement “a democratic bypass” that duped the French parliament and voters. He said Le Pen was at the center of “a system” used to siphon off EU money intended to pay EU parliamentary aides, to instead pay party staff between 2004 and 2016.
Le Pen has denied any wrongdoing, claiming prosecutors were “only interested” in barring her from the presidential election. She told La Tribune Dimanche newspaper on Sunday, before the verdict was handed down, that the judges had “the right of life or death over our movement.”
Le Pen may have no choice now but to cede her party’s presidential ambitions to its current president, Jordan Bardella, a 29-year-old who took over as National Rally leader in 2021.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the appeals process. Le Pen says she will appeal.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
