Marine Le Pen covicted of graft, barred from Prez poll

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was banned from running for public office for five years after being convicted on Monday of embezzlement, a political watershed that effectively ruled her out of the 2027 presidential race.

The French court’s ruling was a catastrophic setback for Le Pen, the National Rally (RN) party chief who has long been one of the most prominent figures in the European far right and who has been the front-runner in opinion polls for the 2027 contest.

The judge convicting Le Pen of misappropriating EU funds also gave her a four-year prison sentence — two years of which are a suspended sentence and two which will be served under home detention. She received a 1,00,000-euro ($108,200) fine.

Le Pen, 56, will appeal, her lawyer said, and neither the prison sentence nor the fine would be applied until her appeals are exhausted. But the five-year ban from running for office kicks in immediately, via a so-called “provisional execution” measure requested by prosecutors.

Le Pen’s right-hand man, RN president Jordan Bardella, said, “Today it is not only Marine Le Pen who was unjustly convicted. It was French democracy that was killed”.

Le Pen has run three times for president and has said 2027 will be her final run for top office. Her only chance now to run would be if an appeals judge overturns Monday’s ruling before the ballot. Appeals in France can take months or even years.

Le Pen, who before Monday’s events had described prosecutors as seeking her “political death”, left the courtroom in Paris before judge Benedicte de Perthuis read out her sentence, and she had no immediate comment on the ruling. She was expected to appear in an interview with TF1 TV.

Allies in France and far-right leaders from European countries including Italy, Spain and the Netherlands joined in condemning the ruling as judicial overreach.

Le Pen currently presides over the single biggest party in the National Assembly.