Le Pen Defies Appeal Verdict to Launch 2027 Presidential Campaign

Convicted on appeal but still in the race, Marine Le Pen has launched her 2027 presidential bid, banking on a final appeal to suspend her sentence and keep her campaign alive until voters decide.

Marine Le Pen. Photo: Benoit Tessier/Reuters

In a highly publicized televised address on the evening of Tuesday 7 July, Marine Le Pen defied all expectations by announcing her candidacy for the 2027 presidential election, despite the verdict handed down just hours earlier by the Paris Court of Appeal confirming her guilt in the European parliamentary assistants case. The former leader of the Rassemblement National (RN) intends to make full use of all legal avenues available to her to see her commitment through to the end – and to hope for victory.

The verdict in her appeal trial for the misappropriation of public funds – used to pay European parliamentary assistants for national political tasks – handed down on Tuesday 7 July was mixed. Le Pen has been convicted once again, but the sentence was less severe than had been sought against her: a €100,000 ($114,000) fine, three years’ imprisonment instead of four – one of which is to be served under electronic tagging – and, most importantly, a 45-month ban on standing for election instead of the initial five years, of which 15 months have already been served. It is this last provision that has reopened up a range of possibilities for her, as she explained on TF1’s evening news program.

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A Bold Choice

Freed from the disqualification period – the first obstacle to her candidacy – Le Pen considered that she could now enter the race. The second obstacle is the requirement to wear an electronic tag for one year, which she regarded as a condition that would prevent her from running her campaign.

But the former MEP has found a way around this: she intends to appeal to the Court of Cassation against this second judgment. She is challenging the legal principle that a Member of the European Parliament cannot be involved in national political activities on behalf of their party. Legally, this will have the effect of suspending the sentence and allowing her to campaign without the ankle monitor while the appeal is pending.

In all likelihood, the timetable will therefore be as follows. The judgment was handed down on 7 July. Le Pen has until 20 July to confirm her intention to appeal to the Court of Cassation. From that point, the time limit for proceedings before this court of last resort will begin to run. Processing times are usually quite long – up to 18 months or two years – but given the highly specific and urgent nature of her case, they could be shortened to around nine months.

Le Pen can therefore reasonably expect a new judgment in February or March 2027. Until then, she can campaign without an electronic tag, while once again benefiting from the presumption of innocence, and she has no intention of missing out on this opportunity, as she explained.

An Unusual Ticket

One question inevitably arose from the journalist conducting the interview – and one that many French people are asking themselves: what about Jordan Bardella, who has been preparing for months for the possibility of standing as a candidate himself, not without some success, given that numerous polls show him performing better than Marine Le Pen herself?

Le Pen chose to sidestep the issue, pointing out that within the RN, the defense of France and the French people takes precedence over personal ambitions, and that they would campaign as a pair. Following her statement, political analysts emphasized that the existence – entirely unprecedented in French politics – of a ticket such as that formed by Bardella and Le Pen was a prerequisite for a possible victory for the RN, as their two personalities enable them to unite and thus reconcile electorates that are sociologically different, and whose expectations regarding the party’s program also differ.

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Reactions from Left and Right

Upon the announcement of her candidacy, which took many by surprise, reactions from the French political establishment poured in. On the left, the line of attack is clear: Marine Le Pen is a “liar”, in the words of Manon Aubry, MEP for La France Insoumise, a criminal and a convicted offender, which strips her of any legitimacy to hold the highest office – disregarding the law which holds that, until the end of the appeal proceedings, she remains presumed innocent.

Some even fear a Trumpian moment for the right-wing candidate. The center’s favorite candidate, former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, has been more measured in his attacks, arguing that she is free to make her own choices, and that it is up to the French people to decide at the ballot box.

Within the national right, the news has been greeted with delight. Éric Ciotti, president of the Union des Droites pour la République (UDR, or Union of the Right for the Republic) – an ally of the RN – described Le Pen’s candidacy as “good news for French democracy”. Even Éric Zemmour, despite being very reserved about his main rival on the right, said he was pleased that Le Pen’s fate now lay in the hands of the voters rather than the judges’.

As soon as the appeal proceedings were over, Le Pen launched her campaign. She is expected to appear with Jordan Bardella in the town of La Flèche in the west – led by an RN mayor – to meet with her supporters. She said she was “delighted that the freedom to vote has now been restored to the French people”.