A French court convicted far-right leader Marine Le Pen of embezzlement Monday and barred her from running for political office for five years — a stunning decision that could upend the 2027 presidential election, in which Le Pen was considered a leading contender.

Le Pen, 56, the guiding force of the National Rally — a Euroskeptic party that was once an outcast of French political life for its xenophobic history but was made mainstream by Le Pen herself over decades — was sentenced to four years in prison, including two years suspended and two under home detention, and a fine of $108,000.

The verdict came toward the end of an hours-long hearing in which a judge read out sentences for 20 others who served as European lawmakers or parliamentary assistants for National Rally. Prosecutors claim the party misused European Union funds. Le Pen, who was in court for the start of the hearing, left before her full sentence was read.

Pierre Mathiot, a political scientist at Sciences Po Lille, called the verdict a “political tsunami” for France.

In an evening interview with TF1, a French television station, Le Pen said that she would not withdraw from political life because of a “political” decision by the courts. “Let’s be clear: I’ve been eliminated,” the National Rally leader said. “But in reality, there are millions of French people whose voices have been eliminated.”

Le Pen said she would appeal “because I am innocent,” but conceded that there was only a “narrow path” that could allow her to run in the next election.

If the appeal process drags on, or is quick and Le Pen’s ineligibility to run in elections is confirmed, the National Rally would probably choose another candidate to replace Le Pen — most likely her 29-year-old deputy, Jordan Bardella. That could cause a “major internal rift” for the party, which has mostly been led since its creation by Le Pen or her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at the Eurasia Group.

The National Rally is “a party with many different views,” he said. “Albeit they all fall in behind Le Pen. If she were not their leader anymore, then I suspect Bardella … will be a lot less effective in corralling [the party] to remain disciplined and united and to cohere around one view.”

Speaking to TF1, Le Pen said Bardella was a “great asset for the movement,” but added that she had hoped he was an asset they did not have to use earlier than necessary.

Prosecutors accused Le Pen and others of using 4.5 million euros ($4.9 million) of European Parliament funds to pay parliamentary assistants who worked mostly as party staff in France.

E.U. rules state that “only expenses for assistance which is necessary and directly linked to the exercise of a Member’s parliamentary mandate may be defrayed.”

Le Pen and other officials from the National Rally denied any wrongdoing during their trial last year. And Le Pen accused prosecutors of wanting her “political death.” Prosecutors had asked the court to sentence her to five years’ imprisonment, a 300,000 euro ($325,000) fine and an immediate five-year ban from public office.

They said the embezzlement lasted between 2004 and 2016 and ended only after Martin Schulz, then president of the European Parliament, reported a possible violation to French and European anti-corruption authorities in March 2015.

The sentence of five years of political ineligibility applied with immediate effect means Le Pen can probably finish her five-year term as a member of the National Assembly — but she will be ineligible to run for public office after her current term ends, even if she appeals her sentence, said Mathiot, the political scientist.

Monday’s ruling is not “the end of the story,” said Rahman of the Eurasia Group, but rather “a step in the process.” Once Le Pen appeals, the Constitutional Council, France’s highest court, may ultimately need to weigh in, potentially setting a precedent for how such cases could be handled in the future, he said.

The ruling upends the field of candidates who are expected to compete for the presidency in 2027. French President Emmanuel Macron cannot run again once his current term ends, and he has no clear centrist successor. Le Pen, meanwhile, has unsuccessfully run for the presidency three times, in 2012, 2017 and 2022, but had been steadily gaining in popularity.

The National Rally is not the only French party accused of misusing European funds: The Democratic Movement (MoDem), a centrist party, was also accused of paying assistants to do party work with European Parliament funds between 2005 and 2017.

Rodolphe Bosselut, an attorney for Le Pen, said in court that the practice was “harmless” and common among political parties in the European Parliament.

But prosecutors have argued that the scale of the alleged fraud in the two cases can’t be compared and that in the MoDem case, the alleged fraud “stopped spontaneously” and was not “systematic.”

During her trial, Le Pen focused on the political implications of the sentence that prosecutors sought against her. She told judges that political ineligibility “would have the effect of depriving me of being a presidential candidate” and noted that “there are 11 million people who voted for the movement I represent.” But prosecutors said the courts must apply the law and ignore political considerations.

France has been in the throes of political turmoil since the National Rally’s victory in European Parliament elections last year pushed Macron to call early elections in France.

That gamble kept the far-right party out of French government but produced a hung Parliament and thrust Le Pen into a kingmaker role in a bitterly fragmented legislature.

France went through four prime ministers in 2024, and the acrimonious divisions often crippled governance as France sought to avert a financial crunch.

The last government, under near-constant threat of collapse, was toppled in December when Le Pen backed a no-confidence vote, making it the shortest-lived government in modern French history. Even if she is banned, Le Pen’s party will still have this sway.

The move underscored how Le Pen has embraced a playbook, also used by President Donald Trump, to flex her political muscles and blame establishment elites for government inaction. Like Trump, Le Pen has also branded the mainstream media as hostile and was criticized in 2022 for banning a French news outlet from a news conference.

Le Pen has been careful not to embrace Trumpism too openly, given that he is broadly unpopular in France. But her embezzlement trial prompted commentators to draw parallels between the two: Like Trump — who was impeached twice and faced charges including election interference and improper handling of classified documents — Le Pen has claimed to be the victim of a “deep state” witch hunt to keep her movement from power. She has questioned the independence of prosecutors and said the political ban they sought was a “violent attack on democracy.”

French prosecutors labeled the allegations of a politically motivated trial as “untruths.”

On Monday, support for Le Pen immediately poured in from far-right figures across Europe. In a tweet in French, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini called the effort to ban her from political life “a declaration of war from Brussels” and “a bad film.” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote simply: “I am Marine!”

The ruling, though it is still subject to the appeals process, is likely to fuel “external criticism of France,” Rahman said — including from Washington.

At the Munich Security Conference in February, Vice President JD Vance blasted European governments for political fire walls designed to keep the far right out of power even as such movements gain ground in many European countries, from Italy to Croatia.

Rahman said the verdict in the Le Pen trial is likely to pique the Trump administration’s interest because “MAGA’s allies in Europe are ultimately situated on the far right of the political spectrum.”

“This administration feels completely unconstrained with taking views on domestic political issues in individual countries in Europe,” he said.

Elon Musk, a Trump presidential adviser, responding to a post on X on Monday that mentioned Le Pen’s prosecution, wrote that “when the radical left can’t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents. This is their standard playbook throughout the world.”

But it’s not clear whether any potential backing of the Trump administration would help or hurt Le Pen and whoever would potentially replace her as her party’s candidate in the 2027 presidential election. “What we’re seeing at the moment is the center being reinforced all over Europe in response to the things the Trump administration is doing,” Rahman said.

Ellen Francis, Adam Taylor and Ben Paltiel contributed to this report.