Le pen's legal battle: a path to the french presidential polls?

A Paris court has delivered a ruling on Marine Le Pen's appeal against her conviction for embezzlement of public funds that could – at least in principle – allow France's far-right figurehead to run in next year's presidential election.

Le pen's conviction upheld but sentence reduced

The appeals court upheld a lower court verdict from March 2025 that found Le Pen guilty of misusing EU funds. However, it reduced the length of both parts of the original sentence: a ban on holding public office and a part-suspended jail term.

The appeals court handed the three-time presidential candidate, who has transformed her far-right National Rally (RN) from an extreme fringe group to the largest single party in the French parliament, a 45-month ban from office, 30 months of which were suspended.

Finding her guilty of misuse of European public funds in her capacity both as an MEP and the then-president of the RN, it also ruled that Le Pen, 57, must serve a three-year jail term, with two suspended and the third spent under house arrest with an electronic ankle tag.

The case against le pen and the national rally

Along with 23 former MEPs, assistants and accountants, as well as the National Rally as a party, Le Pen was accused of running a system that used money meant for employing European parliamentary assistants to pay staff working for the party in France.

The defendants were suspected of having embezzled €4.4m between 2004 and 2016, at first under Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine's father, and then, after 2011, under her.

A personal secretary and a bodyguard were among employees declared as parliamentary assistants.