The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has been barred from running for president in 2027 after a court found her guilty of a vast system of embezzlement of European parliament funds and banned her from running for public office with immediate effect.
The
decision was a political earthquake for Le Pen, who had hoped to make a
fourth bid for president for her far-right, anti-immigration National Rally party.
Le
Pen, 56, said before the verdict that that any immediate ban on running
for election would be like a “political death sentence” and that judges
had “the power of life or death over our movement”. She is likely to
immediately appeal against the verdict.
Judges
handed Le Pen a five year ban on running for public office with the
added provision that it will take immediate effect. It will apply even
if she appeals.
Le Pen, who left the court before the hearing had finished, was also sentenced to four yearsin prison with two years suspended. She was handed an €100,000 fine.
Le
Pen and 24 party members, including nine former members of the European
parliament and their 12 parliamentary assistants, were found guilty of a
vast scheme over many years to embezzle European parliament funds, by
using money earmarked for European parliament assistants to instead pay
party workers in France.
The so-called fake jobs system covered parliamentary assistant contracts
between 2004 and 2016, and was unprecedented in scale and duration,
causing losses of €4.5m to European taxpayer funds. Assistants paid by
the European parliament must work directly on Strasbourg parliamentary
matters, which the judges found had not been the case.
Le Pen will be able to retain her current post as
member of the French parliament for Pas-de-Calais, but will not be able
to stand again in a future parliamentary election for the duration of
her ban on running for office.
Le Pen has run
for French president three times, twice making the final run-off against
Emmanuel Macron. Her National Rally party emerged as the single largest
party in parliament after the 2024 snap parliamentary elections. She
had believed she had her greatest chance at winning the Élysée in 2027
on a platform against immigration.
Addressing the trial last month, Le Pen said she
was innocent: “I have absolutely no sense of having committed the
slightest irregularity, or the slightest illegal act.”
The party will now have to decide who would take her place in the next French presidential race. Jordan Bardella,
29, the young party president, a member of the European parliament, is
popular among voters but is seen as having little experience.
