What does the court ruling mean for Marine Le Pen’s presidential chances?

Marine Le Pen arriving at court in Paris on Tuesday. Photograph: Michel Euler/AP View image in fullscreen Marine Le Pen arriving at court in Paris on Tuesday. Photograph: Michel Euler/AP Explainer What does the court ruling mean for Marine Le Pen’s presidential chances? A look at the the case, the appeal court decision, and how it could affect the race to succeed Emmanuel Macron A Paris court has delivered a ruling on Marine Le Pen’s appeal against her conviction for embezzlement of public funds that could – in principle – allow France’s far-right figurehead to run in next year’s presidential election. Here is a look at the ruling, the case that led up to it – and what the court’s decision means for the race to succeed Emmanuel Macron as French president. What did the court decide? The appeal court upheld a lower court verdict from March 2025 that found Le Pen guilty of misusing EU funds. However, it reduced the length of both parts of the original sentence: a ban on holding public office and a part-suspended jail term. The appeal court handed the three-time presidential candidate, who has transformed her far-right National Rally (RN) from an extreme fringe group to the largest single party in the French parliament, a 45-month ban from office, of which 30 months were suspended. Finding her guilty of misuse of European public funds in her capacity both as an MEP and the then-president of the RN, it also ruled that Le Pen, 57, must serve a three-year jail term, with two suspended and the third spent under house arrest with an electronic ankle tag. In March 2025, the lower court had sentenced Le Pen to a five-year ban from holding public office, with immediate effect, and a four-year prison term, with two years suspended – in effect putting her fourth run for France’s presidency on hold until an appeal was heard. What was the case about? Along with 23 former MEPs, assistants and accountants, as well as the National Rally as a party, Le Pen was accused of running a system that used money meant for employing European parliamentary assistants to pay staff working for the party in France. The defendants were suspected of having embezzled €4.4m between 2004 and 2016, at first under Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father, and after 2011, under her. A personal secretary and a bodyguard were among employees declared as parliamentary assistants. “Marine Le Pen asserted herself with authority and determination within the framework established by her father,” the lower court ruled, playing a “central role” in “optimising” a system designed to “save [the party] money thanks to the European parliament”. Le Pen claimed her party was the victim of a “witch-hunt” and, with 10 others, appealed, denying during her second trial that her party had any kind of system aimed at embezzling EU money, and saying it had acted in “complete good faith”. Prominent nationalist figures, such as Viktor Orbàn in Hungary and Matteo Salvini in Italy, denounced the lower court verdict as a