PARIS — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s political future remained uncertain on Tuesday after an appeals court cleared her to run for office but wearing an ankle tag, potentially hampering a campaign for next year’s presidential elections when her party has its strongest chance yet of winning power.
A lower court last year had sentenced Le Pen, 57, to a five-year ban from public office and a two-year sentence over a fake jobs scam at the European Parliament, threatening the three-time presidential candidate’s hopes to replace outgoing centrist President Emmanuel Macron.
The court said the misappropriated public funds amounted to €2.8 million ($3.2 million). It ruled that Le Pen must serve a three-year jail term. However, it said two of those years were suspended and it ordered her to serve one year at home with an electronic monitoring tag.
The appeals court also effectively reduced the amount of time she is barred from running for office to just 15 months – technically a 45-month ban with 30 months suspended – and gave her a €100,000 ($114,000) fine.
The ruling means that she could still run for office in France’s 2027 presidential election while wearing an electronic ankle monitor, though that would make campaigning logistically difficult and likely create political issues for her National Rally (RN) party. The first round of voting will be held in April and a second round in May.
Le Pen had previously ruled out standing in the election if she had to wear an ankle tag.
“When you are a presidential candidate, you need to be completely free to move about, and that is not the case if you are wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet,” she told French news channel LCI last week. Le Pen is, however, eligible to ask the court for a sentence reduction in January 2027.
Four other RN politicians who served in the European Parliament were also convicted of the misappropriation of public funds by the appeals court on Tuesday, and other defendants were found guilty of complicity or of receiving property through the misused funds.
Asked about the news while on an official trip to Syria on Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron said: “What is healthy for democracy is for the president not to comment on court rulings.”
Le Pen was originally barred from public office on March 31, 2025, when a Paris court found her and other RN members guilty of embezzling European Parliament funds to pay the party’s staff in France, rather than the intended parliamentary assistants. The initial ban on her running for public office was for five years and, controversially, took effect immediately before any appeal could be heard.
Speaking on French television on the evening of her conviction last year, Le Pen denounced the verdict as a “political” decision designed to keep her out of the 2027 race, calling it a “fateful day for our democracy.”
That initial ruling also triggered a furious response from her nationalist allies at home and abroad, feeding an anti-establishment narrative of an elite conspiring to shut them out.
Then-Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán posted “Je suis Marine.” Elon Musk and the Kremlin rallied to her defense. US President Donald Trump also weighed in, calling it a “Witch Hunt.”
Le Pen took over the reins of the National Front (as the RN was then known) in 2011. Her father Jean-Marie, convicted multiple times of violating France’s law prohibiting Holocaust denial and of hate speech, was synonymous with the far-right nationalist party. Marine made it her mission to bring the nationalists into the mainstream.
Her father reached the 2002 presidential runoff, shocking much of France. Twice she reached the same heights, losing to Macron in 2017 and 2022.
Her greatest success came in the electoral advances made by her party, with the rebooted RN winning a growing slice of seats in European and French parliamentary elections, culminating in their best-ever placing in the 2024 snap parliamentary elections.
Her youthful protege, 30-year-old Jordan Bardella, has been RN’s official leader since 2022 and is seen as having helped to distance the party from the toxic views of its founder and boost its appeal with younger voters.
An IPSOS-La Tribune opinion poll in April suggested that Bardella as national president would attract marginally more public support (34%) than Marine Le Pen (32%). However, they both poll higher than any other major political figure in France.
Even when Le Pen handed over the reins of the party Bardella, she remained the uncontested figurehead – and presumed presidential hope – of the far right.
Despite her party’s insistence on her innocence, there has still been explicit preparation for a potential Bardella run to succeed Macron, who is term-limited.
Bardella confirmed that he would stand in Le Pen’s place if necessary, even as he called for her to be able to challenge for the presidency.
Immediately after the ruling on Tuesday, Le Pen went to RN headquarters for a crucial meeting with party officials, including Bardella who was already there, according to CNN’s French affiliate BFMTV. She is expected to give a televised statement on Tuesday evening.
Source: Saudi Gazette