Marine Le Pen’s hour of truth: a very French solution for a very tough French question

A Paris appeals court today upheld Marine Le Pen’s embezzlement conviction but shortened her ban on holding elected office, technically allowing her to run in the 2027 presidential election while requiring her to wear an electronic ankle tag during one year of house arrest. The decision is a clever workaround as it puts the decision about the 2027 elections back into Marine Le Pen’s hands, writes Dick Roche.

EUalive’s columnist Dick Roche is a former Irish Minister for European Affairs. His columns can be found here.

The first round of the French elections will be held on 18 April 2027 with the second round of voting due on 2 May. For those who believe that this very significant election should be determined in the ballot box and not in the Courts the 7 July decision on Marine Le Pen’s appeal will be seen as positive.

On 31 March 2025 Marine Le Pen and eight other MEPs were convicted of embezzling public funds. In addition to Ms LePen and the MEPs, 12 parliamentary assistants were found guilty of receiving stolen funds. Three officials of Rassemblement National were convicted of complicity in the embezzlement.

Marine Le Pen received a sentence of four years in prison, two years of which were suspended and two years to be served under house arrest while wearing an electronic monitor. She was also fined €100,000 and banned from running for or holding public office for five years. The fine and the prison sentence would not apply until the appeals process is exhausted – a process that could take several years.

Critically, however, the Court decided that the ban from running for public office was to be applied with immediate effect, making Ms le Pen ineligible to stand in the 2027 Presidential election.

During the course of the trial Ms Le Pen and members of Rassemblement National were highly critical of the case brought by the French prosecutors. The Court itself also faced vigorous criticism. Marine LePen herself accused the presiding Judge Bénédicte Perthuis of operating with a “tone of Partiality’. She labelled the conviction delivered by the court as a ‘political decision.’

Le Pen was not the only critic. Many, not all of whom were on the right, questioned the court decision – in particular that part of the decision which stipulated that the ban on Ms Le Pen running for public office for five years should have immediate effect.

To many this aspect of the sentence and in particular the fact that it would have immediate effect notwithstanding the fact that Ms Le Pen still had the right to appeal looked like a very deliberate political effort by the judges to shut a candidate who was not to their taste out of the 2027 Presidential race. It raised a question as to whether the French justice system is free of political bias.

The decision handed down on 7th July in Ms Le Pen’s appeal is a clever workaround. It puts the decision about the 2027 elections back into Marine Le Pen’s hands.

The fact that Ms Le Pen – should she decide to contest the election – will have to wear an electronic monitor will be inconvenient and cause logistical problems but those problems can also be ‘worked around.’ The ankle bracelet could in the course of the election be turned to advantage by the Le Pen team.

The French court has come up with a very French solution for the very tough French question that the original Court decision created. We will only know how clever the solution is in May 2027 when the ballots of French voters are counted.

Caption: Rassemblement National (RN) parliamentary party leader Marine Le Pen leaves the Paris courthouse after hearing of the verdict in her appeal trial in Paris, France, 07 July 2026. The court upheld Le Pen’s embezzlement conviction. EPA/Mohammed Badra