Marine Le Pen found guilty, but court clears way for presidential run if she wears tag

The Paris appeal court has upheld Marine Le Pen's conviction for misusing EU funds but shortened her sentence, clearing the path for her to run in the April 2027 French presidential election.

A five-year ban on holding public office has been reduced and backdated to March 2025, and the court said it now considered the penalty had already been served.

However, the leader of the hard-right National Rally (RN) has been given a one-year term wearing an electronic ankle tag under house arrest, although that would not necessarily stop her running either.

Le Pen has said repeatedly she would not run for president if she had to wear an electronic tag as she would not feel "totally free" to campaign.

She is expected to announce whether she will stick with that decision in a national TV appearance tonight at 20:00 (19:00 BST) - and hand her candidacy to her protege, 30-year-old Jordan Bardella.

Marine Le Pen leads the opinion polls with under 10 months to go. She has run for the presidency three times already, and has lost twice in a row to Emmanuel Macron, who cannot run again. Macron has declined to comment on the verdict.

In her last TV interview a week ago the National Rally leader signalled her conditions for running for president to the judges as well as the broader public.

She would not campaign for the presidency while wearing a tag, she told news channel LCI, because "when you're a presidential candidate you need to have total freedom of movement… I can't rely on a judge to allow me to hold a campaign rally or go to a market".

The court's response, delivered months after her appeal was heard in January and February, made clear the judges were not standing in her way.

They had weighed up the sentences of ineligibility for public office against the "freedom of candidacy" and the "free choice of electors", they explained.

It was for the court to assess whether the punishment was proportionate, but running as a candidate and the right to vote was part of the democratic process, they said.

However, they found Marine Le Pen guilty of embezzling funds meant for members of the European Parliament from 2004-16 and using the money to pay for party staff.

While the fake jobs scheme had been driven by her father, National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, the court made clear she had continued the practice with the help of party colleagues including European Parliament members.

The three-year prison sentence Le Pen now faces involves two years suspended and one year wearing an electronic tag. Her original sentence required two years with an ankle bracelet.

Political opponents were swift in their condemnation of Le Pen. Olivier Faure of the Socialists believed she should not run because a candidate for the highest office in France had to set an example, which had not been the case.

Greens leader Marine Tondelier said that contrary to National Rally's repeated claims, there had been "no judicial conspiracy against [Le Pen]... and you could even say she benefited from considerable leniency".

In theory, Marine Le Pen could ask for the one-year term for wearing the electronic tag to be reduced for good behaviour. If the courts agreed to that, she could not only run for the presidency, but avoid entering the Élysée Palace wearing one if she won the two-round race on 18 April 2027 and 2 May.

And although the sentence does include a bar from holding public office, it will not affect her now. Most of the 45-month-term is suspended and she has already served the 15 months that is not suspended since her original conviction on 31 March 2025.

Dozens of journalists and members of the public queued outside the Paris court of appeals from the early hours of Tuesday morning to hear the much-awaited verdict.

All eyes now turn to the coming hours and specifically to Le Pen's live TV interview on the main evening news programme on TF1.

After the verdict was read out, Le Pen travelled to National Rally headquarters in the 16th district on the west side of Paris, where party president Jordan Bardella was waiting.

He was not in court and made no statements in the aftermath of Le Pen's verdict.

The two were thought to be holding talks alongside the rest of the party's leadership ahead of Le Pen's TV appearance.

If she decides not to run, it is expected that Bardella, aged 30, will be the RN's presidential candidate instead.

All but one of the 11 defendants attended Tuesday's court hearing. Former Marine Le Pen ally Bruno Gollnisch was the only one who did not.

All of them were found guilty of diverting European Parliament money, which judge Michèle Agi said should be considered as public funds.

Gollnisch told the BBC that the verdict was a farce and a political manoeuvre: "I will respect [Le Pen's] decision whatever it [may] be. But I think it's the most hypocritical decision to say 'you can't be candidate but you can be candidate with a bracelet on the leg and you will have to come back home every night under police control'. It's stupid."