Major European leader sentenced to jail

The leader of a major political party who had been touted as France’s next President has been convicted of a $5m fraud and is now unable to stand.

The leader of one of France’s largest political parties, who was touted as being the next French president, has been sentenced to jail and barred from standing for office for five years after a conviction on fraud charges.

Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s far right National Rally (Rassemblement National) party, left the court prior to the sentencing being finished.

She had been expected to run for the French presidency in 2027. She is currently leading in the polls with Emmanuel Macron unable to stand again.

Senior politicians on the right have slammed the sentence – and some of her political enemies have done the same. As has Moscow, which Ms Le Pen was has accused of being sympathetic towards.

Elon Musk, who has given his support to far right parties in Europe, also chimed in accusing the “radical left” of “abusing the legal system to jail opponents”.

French far right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has been banned for standing for office fir five years. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon. File)

It’s the latest in a series of court cases where politicians have been explicitly or indirectly barred from being candidates. These include in Romania, where a leading politician backed by Russia was disqualified after he was found to have broken campaigning rules, and in Turkey where a pro-democracy candidate was arrested days ago.

On Monday, a court in Paris found Ms Le Pen guilty of embezzling European Union (EU) funds which benefited her National Rally (RN) party.

She was one of eight EU politicians and 12 staff members who were also convicted. The court said EU funds had been used to employ staff members who were, in reality, working for the party.

The court estimated the scheme was worth 2.9 million euros ($5 million).

The court barred Ms Le Pen, 56, for running for office for five years which would rule her out of the 2027 poll.

She was also given a four-year prison term by the Paris court but will not go to jail, with two years of the term suspended and the other two to be served outside jail with an electronic bracelet.

“The court took into consideration, in addition to the risk of reoffending, the major disturbance of public order if a person already convicted … was a candidate in the presidential election,” said presiding judge Benedicte de Perthuis.

President of the parliamentary group of the French far-right National Rally party, Marine Le Pen arrives at the Paris courthouse for her trial verdict on suspicion of embezzlement of European public funds, in Paris, on March 31, 2025. (Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP)

Ms Le Pen left the courtroom after her conviction and this sanction were announced, but before the judge announced the prison sentence, an AFP correspondent said.

She can still appeal the entire verdict, including the ban on standing for office, in a case that would normally take around a year to be heard by the Court of Appeal.

Were that appeal rejected she could go to France’s Court of Cassation, but in such a complex case, timings could drag out.

Ms Le Pen had said in a piece for the La Tribune Dimanche newspaper published on Sunday that the verdict gives the “judges the right of life or death over our movement”.

She is due to give a prime time TV interview to French broadcaster TF1 on Monday evening.

‘Not healthy in a democracy’

With her RN emerging as the single largest party in parliament after the 2024 legislative elections, polls predicted Ms Le Pen would easily top the first round of voting in 2027 and make the second round two-candidate run-off.

The reaction from Moscow to the verdict was swift.

“More and more European capitals are going down the path of violating democratic norms,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Which is eye-opening comment coming from Russia where they have been longstanding accusation of democratic backsliding.

Other far-right leaders and pro-Moscow figures in Europe also expressed their shock.

“Je suis Marine!” (”I am Marine”), wrote Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, one of her main allies in the EU, on X in support.

For Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, the verdict was “tough”.

“I trust she will win the appeal and become President of France,” he wrote on X.

Elon Musk said: “When the radical left can’t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents. This is their standard playbook throughout the world”.

France's President Emmanuel Macron cannot stand for another term. (Photo by Sarah Meyssonnier / POOL / AFP)

But there was also unease within the political mainstream in France.

“It is not healthy that in a democracy, an elected official is prohibited from standing in an election and I believe that political debates should be decided at the ballot box,” said the leader of MPs in parliament of the right-wing Republicans, Laurent Wauquiez.

Even the leader of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) Jean-Luc Melenchon appeared ill at ease.

“The decision to remove an elected official should be up to the people,” he said.

‘Fate not decided today’

But waiting in the wings is Marine Le Pen’s protégé and RN party leader Jordan Bardella, just 29, who is not under investigation in the case.

Mr Bardella, reacting to the verdict, said French democracy was being “executed” with the “unjust” verdict.

Marine Le Pen speaks to National Rally party President Jordan Bardella who has been tipped to take her place. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

“Of course he has the capacity to become president of the republic,” MS Le Pen said in a documentary broadcast by BFMTV late on Sunday.

But there are doubts even within the party over the so-called Plan B and whether he has the experience for a presidential campaign.

“Le Pen’s political fate was not decided today,” said Eurasia Group analyst Mujtaba Rahman, while adding that if the judgement stands, her place “would almost certainly be taken” by Mr Bardella.

Ms Le Pen took over as head of the then-National Front (FN) in 2011 but rapidly took steps towards making the party an electoral force and shaking off the controversial legacy of its co-founder and her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died earlier this year and who was often accused of making racist and anti-Semitic comments.

She renamed it the National Rally and embarked on a policy known as “dediabolisation” (de-demonisation) with the stated aim of making it acceptable to a wider range of voters.

Prosecutors accused the party of easing pressure on its own finances by using all of the 21,000-euro monthly allowance to which MEPs were entitled to pay “fictitious” parliamentary assistants, who actually worked for the party in France.

“It was established that all these people were actually working for the party, that their MEP had not assigned them any tasks,” said the judge.

Originally published as Major European leader sentenced to jail