The ban on National Rally leader Marine Le Pen running in the 2027 French presidential election was overturned by the Paris Court of Appeal on Tuesday; however, other aspects of the ruling may still derail her campaign.
After over a year of waiting, the appeal court finally issued a ruling on the eligibility of three-time candidate Marine Le Pen to stand again in next year’s race to replace Emmanuel Macron.
Le Pen faced a five-year ban from standing in any election in Europe over alleged embezzlement of European Union funds intended for her party’s use in the EU Parliament, which were claimed to have been used to pay for party operations in France.
On Tuesday, the Paris Court of Appeal reduced her sentence from five years’ ineligibility to 45 months, with 30 months suspended. This means that from the initial ban issued in March of last year, her 15 months of ineligibility would expire well before the April 18th vote next year, Le Figaro reported.
However, the court also handed down a €100,000 fine and sentenced her to three years in prison (suspended) and one year of house arrest with an electronic monitoring tag, which would likely severely limit her ability to campaign.
Le Pen had previously stated that she would not run for the presidency if she were subjected to electronic monitoring by the court. She has previously stated that if she is prevented from running, she would back her long-standing deputy, Jordan Bardella, to run in her place.
It is also possible that she could appeal to the Court of Cassation, the country’s top appeals court, over her house arrest. However, it is unclear whether a ruling would come in time to meaningfully shift the political timeline. Some have suggested that she may also appeal to have her restrictions on movement lifted after 6 months in order to allow her to fully campaign.
The National Rally leader is reportedly set to appear on the Télévision Française 1 broadcaster at 8 pm local time to discuss the ruling.
According to Le Pen’s lawyer, Rodolphe Bosselut, the court specifically emphasised the “freedom of voters to have a candidate” in its decision and noted that among the justices there had been a “considerable shift in the sentences, particularly regarding the ineligibility penalty.”
However, many on the left were quick to call for Le Pen to take herself out of the race, with New Popular Front founder and potential presidential candidate François Ruffin saying, “Let this simple question be in our minds: how can we imagine a presidential candidate campaigning with an electronic bracelet? It is a marker of the level of corruption of the nation.”
The leader of the leftist-green Ecologists party, Marine Tondelier, claimed that the ruling demonstrated that Le Pen had judicial “privilege”, arguing that the sentence was too lenient.
To the contrary, a 2023 report found that as many as one in five Members of the European Parliament had broken the same rules that Le Pen has been accused of breaking, yet only one MEP had ever faced an investigation before Le Pen’s trial, sparking accusations that the case was politically motivated.
For his part, President Emmanuel Macron said that he would not comment on the ruling. Speaking to reporters during his trip to Syria, Macron said: “What is healthy for democracy is that the President of the Republic does not comment on judicial decisions, so I will stick to this principle, especially abroad.”
This story is developing, more to follow…