Le Pen Says She Will Run for Presidency Despite Conviction

Marine Le Pen said on Tuesday evening that she intends to run in France’s 2027 presidential election after an appeals court upheld her conviction for misusing European Parliament funds but reduced her ban from holding public office.

The leader of the nationalist National Rally (RN) parliamentary group had originally been barred from running for public office for five years from March 2025 after being convicted of using European Parliament funds to pay party staff in France. On Tuesday, the Paris Court of Appeal reduced the period of ineligibility, leaving open the possibility that she could stand in next year’s election.

“As of tonight, I am a candidate for the presidency”, Le Pen declared on TF1 television. She also announced that she would appeal the ruling to the French Court of Cassation.

The court sentenced Le Pen to three years in prison, two of them suspended and one to be served under electronic monitoring. It also fined her €100,000 ($114,000). The ruling said the judgment had to take into account voters’ freedom to choose their preferred candidate.

The National Rally was fined €2m ($2.3m), half of it suspended, and ordered to forfeit €1m ($1.1m).

According to opinion polls, Le Pen and Jordan Bardella are among the frontrunners in the presidential election. The ruling leaves Le Pen’s campaign under legal constraint, while the National Rally faces growing pressure to keep Bardella ready as a possible alternative.

(Reuters, bak)