Le Pen found guilty: French far-right leader bids farewell to 2027 Elysee race

Brussels – Four years in prison – including two years in detention and five years of ineligibility with immediate effect: the sentence handed down by the Paris court to Marine Le Pen as part of the inquiry over the misuse of European Parliament funds is a historic blow for the French far-right leader. Le Pen thus compromised her candidacy for the 2027 presidential election.

The former Rassemblement National (RN) president and 24 other party members were found guilty. Between 2004 and 2016, the French far-right formation established an “organized system” of embezzling public funds from the European Parliament. Rassemblement National hired dozens of fictitious European parliamentary assistants who worked for the party in France and were paid with funds from the Brussels Chamber.

As requested by the prosecutor’s office, the five-year ineligibility sentence is provisionally enforceable, meaning that it immediately applies if she is convicted, even if Le Pen decides to appeal. The daughter of Jean Marie Le Pen, founder of the then Front National, thus says goodbye to the Elysee race. Already a candidate and defeated in 2012, 2017, and 2022, the former RN president now had a great chance of bringing the far right to power in Paris for the first time.

Le Pen will also have to pay 100,000 euros in fines. Also sentenced were Louis Aliot, mayor of Perpignan, former treasurer Wallerand de Saint-Just, and Le Pen’s niece, Marion Maréchal, who left the party in 2022.

Viktor Orbán, founder of the Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament, of which Rassemblement National is a member, immediately supported Le Pen. “Je suis Marine!” the Hungarian premier wrote on X. The Kremlin also criticized Le Pen’s condemnation, calling it “a violation of democratic norms.” While Italian Vice-Premier Matteo Salvini lashed out at the EU,
speaking of “a declaration of war by Brussels at a time in which Von der Leyen and Macron’s warlike impulses are appalling.”