Lauded as a politically motivated decision, News Editor Adam Behan explores the case of Marine Le Pen of France’s Rassemblement National and a court ruling on March 31 which blocks Le Pen’s candidacy for the 2027 presidential race
On March 31, a court convicted France’s National Rally (RN) party Deputy Marine Le Pen of embezzling more than €4 million for RN staff from the European Parliament. The conviction also included 8 MEPs and 12 assistants, with some sentences including bans on running for office.
Most importantly, Le Pen received a five-year ban on running for public office, disqualifying her from running as a candidate in the 2027 presidential race, which was projected to be her closest shot at executive office in her history of contesting national elections. Ms Le Pen received a fine of €100,000 and a suspended prison sentence of 4 years, two of which require Le Pen to wear an electronic tag.
Marine Le Pen is cited as being one of the most prominent far-right politicians in Europe. She follows in the footsteps of her father and founder of the National Rally, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was himself ousted from the party (formerly known as the National Front) by his daughter in 2015; he was notorious for down-playing the Holocaust, once branding gas chambers during World War Two “a detail of history”, and also spewed anti-Muslim rhetoric.
In 2022, Marine Le Pen garnered the second-highest proportion of the popular vote in France’s two-round presidential election, losing out to Emmanuel Macron, who is currently serving out his second and final term, as mandated by the French Constitution.
Some estimates suggest that Le Pen has a good chance of winning the 2027 election if she is allowed to run. She has previously stated that she has no intention to stake another claim for presidency if she fails to win the popular vote again.
Reacting to the March 31 verdict, Marine Le Pen determined the ruling to be a “political decision”, calling into question the motivations of France’s judicial system, which has enjoyed steady support in wake of the ruling. Jordan Bardella, President of the National Rally, called for a “peaceful mobilisation” to challenge the court verdict. Bardella is perhaps the leading far-right candidate for the 2027 French presidential elections, absent Marine.
Other prominent far-right politicians came out in support of the French politician after the verdict was published, such as Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, who took to X with the phrase “Je suis Marine!” Other allies came out in support online, such as the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, Spain’s far-right leader of Vox Santiago Abascal, and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
A Court of Appeals in Paris could, however, rescue Le Pen’s presidential campaign from its demise by summer of 2026 if a review of the case reverses the original decision, in time for Marine to bypass the five-year ban on public office and possibly take advantage of the political momentum of such an overturn.
The judge who presided over the case, Bénédicte de Perthuis, received numerous personal threats after the court verdict, requiring police protection for the duration of an investigation into the sources of these threats.