Marine Le Pen has been found guilty of embezzling millions of euros from the European parliament – a verdict that could see her barred from standing to succeed Emmanuel Macron in the next presidential election.
The leader of the far-right National Rally (RN), a frontrunner in the polls for the presidency in 2027, was among a number of party officials accused of diverting more than €3m (£2.5m) of European parliament funds to pay France-based staff.
Prosecutors have asked that Le Pen face an immediate five-year ban from public office, regardless of any appeal process, using a so-called “provisional execution” measure.
While the full verdict is still being delivered, the judge ruled on Monday that Le Pen should be barred from seeking public office with immediate effect. The length of such a ban – and therefore its impact upon the 2027 election – remains unclear.
But in a moment of high drama, Le Pen stood up and stormed out of the court midway through the verdict. She was then driven away from the courthouse.
The prosecution had alleged that Le Pen’s party, the National Rally, had treated the European Parliament as a “cash cow”. She had been accused both as a former member of the European Parliament and as the National Rally party leader during the period in question between 2004 and 2016.
Le Pen and her two dozen co-defendants had insisted the European Union funds were used legitimately that the allegations against them defined the role of a parliamentary assistant too narrowly.
But judge Benedicte de Perthuis ruled on Monday: “It was established that all these people were actually working for the party, that their [EU] lawmaker had not given them any tasks.”
“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 judge also handed down guilty verdicts to eight other current or former members of her party National Rally who – like Le Pen – previously served as elected legislators in the European Parliament, along with 12 parliamentary assistants.
Ms de Perthuis said Le Pen had been at the centre of a system put in place by the party to use EU funds to pay France-based staff, telling the court: “At the heart of this system since 2009, Marine Le Pen has placed herself with authority and determination in the system established by her father.”
Prosecutors had recommended handing her a five-year sentence, three of which would be suspended, a fine of €300,000 and a five-year ban on running for public office.
Le Pen has accused prosecutors of seeking her “political death”, alleging a plot to keep the RN from power that echoes claims made by US president Donald Trump about his own legal woes.
In an interview with La Tribune Dimanche, published on Saturday ahead of the verdict, Le Pen said: “With provisional execution, the judges have the power of life or death over our movement.”
For more than a decade, Le Pen has worked at making her party more mainstream, trying to dull its extremist edge to broaden its appeal to voters.
She led the National Rally from 2011 to 2021. She changed its name from the National Front, as part of her efforts to distance it from the period when her father, Jean-Marie, ran it and it carried a heavy stigma of racism and antisemitism.
Now a legislator in the National Assembly, the French parliament’s powerful lower house, she has already positioned herself as a candidate to succeed Mr Macron, who cannot run for the presidency again, having twice finished runner-up to him.
In 2022, Mr Macron won with 58.5 per cent per cent of the vote to Le Pen’s 41.5 per cent — significantly closer than when they first faced off in 2017 and the best score ever of the French far right in a presidential bid.
Ineligibility “would have the effect of depriving me of being a presidential candidate”, she pleaded during the trial. “Behind that, there are 11 million people who voted for the movement I represent. So tomorrow, potentially, millions and millions of French people would see themselves deprived of their candidate in the election.”
Le Pen’s natural successor is Jordan Bardella, 29, who took over the helm of the party when Le Pen stepped back from that role in 2021. He would likely be her prime minister if she were to become president.
Yet observers say there’s no guarantee he would be able to convince as many voters as she does. In recent months, some inside the party have criticised his management as too focused on his personal career.
Since joining the party at age 17, Bardella has risen quickly through the ranks, serving as spokesperson and president of its youth wing, before being appointed vice president and becoming the second-youngest member of the European Parliament in history, in 2019.