Marine Le Pen / © Associated Press
At the same time, the court upheld the main elements of the sentence: Le Pen was fined 100,000 euros, and her sentence of four years’ imprisonment was upheld—three years suspended and one year under electronic monitoring, according to the BBC
In France, wearing an electronic ankle monitor does not amount to full house arrest, but it does severely restrict freedom of movement. Le Pen had previously stated that such conditions could make it impossible to run a full-fledged election campaign.
After the verdict was announced, the politician left the courthouse without answering journalists’ questions. Her lawyers said that Le Pen would review the court’s decision.
The case stems from allegations of the misuse of European Union funds. In March 2025, a trial court found Le Pen guilty of having staff members of the “National Rally” party registered as assistants to Members of the European Parliament, even though they were actually working for the party in France. According to the prosecution, approximately 3 million euros were spent from EU funds in this manner.
Le Pen denied any involvement in fraud and stated that she did not organize the scheme, although she acknowledged that a mistake may have been made in the party’s operations. A total of 25 RN representatives were convicted in the case; ten of them, including Le Pen, filed appeals.
The initial verdict by the court of first instance effectively jeopardized Le Pen’s political future. In March 2025, she was barred from holding public office for five years, which automatically ruled out her participation in the 2027 presidential campaign. The ban took effect immediately, unlike the portion of the sentence involving restriction of liberty.
Le Pen called the initial verdict politically motivated and claimed that it was intended to prevent her from making another attempt to run for president. She has already run for president three times and advanced to the second round twice—in 2017 and 2022—losing to Emmanuel Macron both times.
It should be noted that the leader of the “National Rally” remains one of the most prominent figures in French politics. Marine Le Pen took over the party in 2011 from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the “National Front”—the predecessor to the current organization—in 1972. After taking the helm, she embarked on a course to change the party’s image and distance it from the more radical positions of the past.
