Marine Le Pen could run in France’s presidential election next year, a court has ruled in a significant boost to her party’s chances of securing power.
The far-right leader had sought to overturn the five-year ban from public office and a four-year jail sentence for embezzling funds from the European parliament, handed down by a French court last year.
Her ban on running for elected office has been shortened, potentially re-opening a path for the far-right leader to run in the 2027 presidential race.
With her anti-immigration National Rally party comfortably ahead in the polls, her supporters hope that the ruling would allow her to run and succeed Emmanuel Macron.
The ruling means that Le Pen, 57 will not replace protege Jordan Bardella, 30,
“I’m not scared,” she said this week. “If I can run, I will – as long as I can campaign.”
Le Pen was accused of using European parliament funds meant to finance the costs of parliamentary assistants to pay employees working for her own political party.
French investigative news website Mediapart in 2013 reported that she had hired two members of her party, then the National Front, as parliamentary assistants. Investigators found these hires were not isolated but part of a wider system of “fake jobs”.
In 2023, after a seven-year investigation, Le Pen was ordered to stand trial alongside more than two dozen other defendants over the alleged misuse of EU funds – charges she and her party contested.
Le Pen was banned from holding public office for five years on 31 March 2025 after being found guilty of embezzling €1.4m (£1.2m) in European parliament funds to pay her party employees between 2004 and 2016 through such a scheme.
More to follow on this breaking story…
