Marine Le Pen, banned from next elections over embezzlement

Marine Le Pen has slammed a French court and vowed to appeal after she was barred from politics for five years after misusing EU funds and given a prison sentence which she can serve from home.

French far-right Rassemblement National party president Marine Le Pen arrives at a Paris court on Monday. Picture: AFP

Marine Le Pen has slammed a French court for a “political decision” after she was convicted in an embezzlement trial and banned from France’s next presidential election.

The verdict means Ms Le Pen can’t take part in 2027 presidential elections in which she was the leading candidate, but the leader of the far right National Rally party told French TV she would appeal the ruling and vowed she would in “no way” retire from political life.

“I’m not going to let myself be eliminated like this. I’m going to pursue whatever legal avenues I can. There is a small path. It’s certainly narrow, but it exists,” she said, urging the judiciary to hold the appeal hearing swiftly so she could still take part in the 2027 vote.

Judges handed down the sentence overnight (AEDT), up-ending France’s political order and thrusting Ms Le Pen’s far-right party into limbo. Ms Le Pen also received a four-year prison sentence, half of which was suspended. Judges said she could serve the remaining two years by using an electronic bracelet or other alternatives to jail time.

The ruling takes Ms Le Pen out of contention for the 2027 race, when President Emmanuel Macron finishes his second and final term and Ms Le Pen was expected to be the front-runner.

The court ruled that Ms Le Pen and other members of her party illegally used millions of euros in European Union funding that was earmarked for assistants helping politicians in the European parliament with their work. Instead, judges said, Ms Le Pen and her politicians used the money to pay party staffers who weren’t involved in work for the parliament.

Judges applied “provisional execution” to Ms Le Pen’s ban, which means that it takes effect immediately, even if Ms Le Pen appeals Monday’s ruling. Her prison sentence, meanwhile, remains suspended while any appeals are under way.

Ms Le Pen denied the charges in court, testifying that it was appropriate for the assistants to perform other party-related work because they were political aides, not direct employees of the European parliament.

The Wall Street Journal