A French appeals court has delivered a pivotal ruling that allows far-right leader Marine Le Pen to stand in next year’s presidential election, albeit under the condition of wearing an electronic ankle monitor. The court upheld her conviction for misusing European Union funds but significantly reduced the severity of the penalties, clearing a path for her candidacy in the 2027 race.
The court determined that the misappropriated public funds amounted to €2.8 million ($3.2 million). Le Pen was sentenced to a three-year jail term, with two years suspended and one year to be served at home under electronic monitoring. Additionally, the court reduced her ban from running for office to 15 months—a 45-month ban with 30 months suspended—and imposed a €100,000 ($114,000) fine.
The ruling means Le Pen could potentially campaign for the presidency while wearing an ankle monitor, though this would pose logistical challenges and could create political difficulties for her National Rally (RN) party. The first round of voting is scheduled for April, with a second round in May. Le Pen had previously stated she would not run if required to wear an ankle tag, telling French news channel LCI last week, “When you are a presidential candidate, you need to be completely free to move about, and that is not the case if you are wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet.” However, she is eligible to request a sentence reduction in January 2027.
The 2027 election was already shaping up to be one of the most uncertain and consequential in recent French history, and the appeals process had frozen the question of Le Pen’s eligibility for over a year. Four other RN politicians who served in the European Parliament were also convicted of misappropriating public funds, with other defendants found guilty of complicity or receiving property from the misused funds.
French President Emmanuel Macron, asked about the news during an official trip to Syria, said, “What is healthy for democracy is for the president not to comment on court rulings.”
Le Pen was originally barred from public office on March 31, 2025, when a Paris court found her and other RN members guilty of embezzling European Parliament funds to pay party staff in France rather than parliamentary assistants. The initial five-year ban took effect immediately, before any appeal could be heard, sparking a furious response from her nationalist allies. Then-Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán posted “Je suis Marine,” while Elon Musk, the Kremlin, and former US President Donald Trump rallied to her defense, with Trump calling it a “Witch Hunt.”
Le Pen, credited with “de-demonizing” her father’s far-right party, took over the National Front (now RN) in 2011. Her father, Jean-Marie, was synonymous with the far-right and was convicted multiple times for Holocaust denial and hate speech. Marine made it her mission to bring the nationalists into the mainstream, reaching the presidential runoff twice, losing to Macron in 2017 and 2022. Her greatest success came in the electoral advances of her party, with the RN winning a growing number of seats in European and French parliamentary elections, culminating in their best-ever performance in the 2024 snap elections.
Her youthful protégé, 30-year-old Jordan Bardella, has been RN’s official leader since 2022 and is seen as helping distance the party from its founder’s toxic views. An IPSOS-La Tribune opinion poll in April suggested Bardella would attract marginally more public support (34%) than Le Pen (32%), though both poll higher than any other major political figure in France. Bardella has confirmed he would stand in Le Pen’s place if necessary, and he published a book this year titled “What the French Want,” outlining his vision for France. With his youth and a powerful presence on TikTok (2.3 million followers), he remains a political prospect not to be written off.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
