French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has been banned from standing for office for five years with immediate effect and sentenced to jail after being convicted of embezzling EU funds.
Monday’s court ruling, which remakes France’s political landscape, is likely to block Le Pen from running in the 2027 presidential election, for which she was one of the favourites.
Le Pen, who stormed out of the Paris courtroom before her sentence was announced and muttered the word “unbelievable” under her breath, has said she will appeal. Her party, Rassemblement National, called for mass protests in response to the ruling by three judges.
In an interview with TF1 television on Monday night, Le Pen acknowledged the court ruling meant she had been “eliminated” from the 2027 presidential vote, but vowed to fight on and try to overturn the verdict in her appeal.
She slammed the judges’ ruling as biased and a violation of voters’ freedom to choose. “I’m not going to let myself be eliminated like this. I’ll pursue every possible legal recourse. There’s a path — narrow, yes — but it exists,” Le Pen said.
With the populist right on the rise in much of Europe and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist forces weakened by the loss of their parliamentary majority in last year’s legislative elections, the three-time presidential candidate had hoped to finally secure power in the 2027 poll.
Although the five-year electoral ban will begin immediately, Le Pen’s four-year jail sentence would only begin once no further legal recourse remains.
Two years of the sentence could be served under surveillance wearing an ankle bracelet, while the two further years are suspended. Le Pen was also fined €100,000.
“It is necessary to ensure that elected officials do not benefit from preferential treatment,” said chief judge Bénédicte de Perthuis in justifying the imposition of an immediate ban.
Le Pen’s ability to run in the 2027 election will depend on the duration of the appeal process and its ultimate outcome.
She told TF1 that she had no intention of withdrawing from politics and will remain a member of the National Assembly. “In no way, not at all,” Le Pen said. “In a democracy, it’s the voters who decide. I’m here tonight to tell them: don’t worry, I’m not demoralised.”
Nevertheless, many analysts believe Le Pen will not be able to contest the 2027 vote.
“This marks a major, major turning point in French political life,” said Bruno Cautrès, a political scientist at Sciences Po university in Paris, arguing that Le Pen’s 29-year-old protégé Jordan Bardella would now have to run in her place.
Cautrès added Le Pen had been one of the two frontrunners for the presidency, along with centrist former prime minister Édouard Philippe, who trailed far behind her in an opinion poll published on Sunday.
“Today, it is not only Marine Le Pen who is being unjustly condemned: it is French democracy that is being executed,” Bardella posted on X, later calling for a peaceful mass mobilisation “to show that the will of the people is stronger” than the court.
The verdict was attacked by Donald Trump’s administration. “Exclusion of people from the political process is particularly concerning given the aggressive and corrupt lawfare waged against President Trump, here in the US,” said Tammy Bruce, US state department spokesperson.
Trump on Monday described the decision as a “very big deal”.
“A lot of people thought she wasn’t going to be convicted of anything,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “She was banned from running for five years and she was the leading candidate.”
Bruce highlighted a controversial speech given by US vice-president JD Vance at the Munich security conference in February in which he said Europe was retreating from its “fundamental values”, partly by seeking to isolate far-right parties.
Elon Musk, a key adviser to Trump also attached the ruling. “When the radical left can’t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents,” he posted on X.
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s far-right deputy prime minister and a Le Pen ally, compared the verdict to the Romanian authorities’ decision to exclude the former frontrunner Călin Georgescu from the country’s presidential race.
“This is a declaration of war by Brussels,” he posted on X. “We will not be intimidated, we will not stop.”
Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, said “more and more European capitals are going down the path of trampling democratic norms”.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán posted: “Je suis Marine!”
But Prisca Thevenot, a centrist MP from Macron’s party, said Le Pen should not be above the law.
“We are in a democracy that is based on the rule of law,” she added. “There is a separation between law and politics.”
The court found that a system of fake contracts and jobs helped Rassemblement National siphon off about €4.4mn of EU funds by using parliamentary assistants in Brussels to work for the party in France.
In total, 24 RN elected officials — including nine former members of the European parliament — were tried for similar offences alongside Le Pen, who was an MEP between 2004 and 2016.
“These were fake contracts,” the chief judge said as she read out the verdict.
She added that while there was “no personal enrichment” for the ex-MEPs involved, they benefited from “a certain financial comfort” as well as financial help for the party.
All nine of the ex-MEPs were also found guilty, while the rulings for other staffers and party officials varied depending on their level of involvement.
In reaching its decisions, the court also took into account the risk of repeat offences and a “major disturbance of public order” if someone who had been sentenced were allowed to run in a presidential election.
