A French court on Monday found Marine Le Pen guilty of embezzling European Union funds in a verdict that could end the far-right leader’s plans to run for the French presidency in the country’s next elections.
While the court was yet to announce her sentence, the Paris prosecutor had previously requested that Le Pen, 56, face a five-year prison sentence and a five-year ban from public office, along with a fine of 300,000 euros ($316,860) if found guilty. Judges can choose to adopt, modify or ignore that request.
The nine-week trial, which began in November after almost a decade of investigations, saw Le Pen and 24 other figures from her National Rally (RN) party accused of misusing over 3 million euros ($3.3 million) of European Parliament funds to pay party staff between 2004 and 2016 in violation of EU regulations. All of those accused have denied the charges.
Delivering his ruling Monday, the judge Benedicte de Perthuis said “it was established that all these people were actually working for the party, that their (EU) lawmaker had not given them any tasks,” according to Reuters.
He added that the investigations also showed that “these were not administrative errors… but embezzlement within the framework of a system put in place to reduce the party’s costs.”
The ruling has the potential to reshape French politics, with Le Pen having turned her far-right vehicle into a mainstream and popular political force and herself into the favorite to win the country’s next presidential elections, set to be fought in 2027.
While it won the largest number of votes in the first round of last year’s parliamentary elections, RN failed to win a majority and remains outside of the France’s governing coalition. Emmanuel Macron, the country’s centrist president, has since attempted to steer his country through months of razor-thin majorities, no-confidence votes and political uncertainty.
While he has experienced a mild recovery in the polls during that time — partly due to the ripple-effect of President Donald Trump’s first months back in office — Macron cannot run for the presidency a third time and any of his centrist successors risk losing to their ultra-conservative rival.
A recent poll conducted by the French Institute of Public Opinion for French broadcaster Sud Radio found that Le Pen would, with around 42% of the vote, easily win the first round of the next presidential election.
Even if she appeals the verdict, a “provisional execution” could see Le Pen, a three-time presidential contender and front-runner in the polls ahead of the 2027 vote, barred from running in the election.
RN has accused prosecutors of seeking Le Pen’s “political death” to keep the popular far-right leader from seeking public office.
Le Pen said Saturday that she expected leniency from the judges, telling French newspaper La Tribune Dimanche that “with provisional execution, the judges have the power of life or death over our movement… but I don’t think they’ll go that far.”
After taking over the leadership from her late father Jean-Marie Le Pen, she has transformed the RN, with its far-right nationalist roots, into the biggest single party in France’s parliament by making it more mainstream and popularizing it among younger and more blue-collar voters.
Le Pen protégé and party president, 29-year-old Jordan Bardella, is expected to take her place if his mentor is forced to step down.
The trial has also whipped up fierce debate within France around on the subject of how much judges should be allowed to intervene in the country’s politics.
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