Paris court bans Marine Le Pen from holding political office for five years after finding her guilty of embezzling EU funds. The ruling, which includes a four-year prison sentence (two years suspended) and a €100,000 fine, derails her 2027 presidential ambitions.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has been disqualified from seeking political office for five years following a court ruling on Monday that found her guilty of misappropriating European Union funds, CNN reported.
The decision delivers a severe blow to her ambitions of contesting the 2027 presidential election.
A Paris court also sentenced Le Pen to four years in prison, with two years suspended, to be served under house arrest, and imposed a €100,000 fine. Her lawyer confirmed that she will appeal the ruling.
Le Pen’s party, the National Rally (RN), was fined €2 million in connection with the €4.1 million misused in the case. The court found that Le Pen and several other party members had redirected European Parliament funds to pay RN employees in France, a violation of EU financial regulations.
Presiding judge Bénédicte de Perthuis characterized the case as a “serious and lasting attack on the rules of democratic life in Europe, but especially in France.” She stated that barring Le Pen from political office was necessary due to the “democratic public unrest” that could arise from electing an individual convicted of financial misconduct.
Le Pen, appearing on French television network TF1, denounced the ruling as a “political decision” and claimed it violated the rule of law. She argued that her right to an “effective recourse” under the European Convention on Human Rights had been disregarded.
The case, which involved over 20 members of the National Rally, including nine European Parliament representatives and 12 assistants, centered on the use of EU funds to compensate RN staff in France. The court concluded that Le Pen misused these resources over more than a decade, employing party members as European parliamentary assistants despite their work being unrelated to EU affairs.
This ruling significantly diminishes Le Pen’s prospects of securing the presidency in 2027, an election in which President Emmanuel Macron will be ineligible to run due to term limits.
In the 2022 election, Le Pen’s party recorded an extraordinary surge, winning 89 seats in the 577-member parliament, up from a previous total of eight.
