French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has announced she will run for president in 2027 after an appeals court shortened her ban on public office – but she faces having to campaign while wearing an electronic ankle tag.
The 57-year-old’s presidential hopes had been in limbo since March 2025, when she received a five-year electoral ban for using money from the European parliament to pay wages for staff at her anti-immigrant National Rally (RN) party.
“Tonight, I am a candidate in the presidential election,” she said in a prime-time interview on TF1 on Tuesday night, ending speculation that she might not run because of the monitoring.
The RN leads opinion polls for next April’s election. And Le Pen, who has three times failed to win the presidency for the far right in 15 years at the helm, is gambling that voters can overlook her conviction.
The EU parliament’s lawyer said the ruling “demonstrated that justice is independent”.
“We note a significant sentence reduction,” Rodolphe Bosselut said, according to Politico. He said he was “partially” satisfied with the ruling, which was a “good start”.
No decision has been made on whether to file an appeal before France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, he added.
She will be helped by protégé Jordan Bardella, 30. He has repeatedly said he is preparing to become Le Pen’s prime minister rather than her replacement.
Polls have consistently shown both figures as strong contenders to reach a presidential runoff. Some recent surveys have even suggested Mr Bardella would outperform Le Pen in the first round.
But rival parties are furious that Le Pen is even considering a bid.
Greens leader Marine Tondelier said that “in a normal world where the RN had even the slightest shred of morality, [Le Pen] would give up ... because you can’t decently stand `for election after being convicted of misappropriating public funds”.
Judges also sentenced Le Pen’s National Rally party to pay a €2m fine, half of which is suspended.
French investigative news website Mediapart in 2013 reported that she had hired two members of her party, then the National Front, as parliamentary assistants. Investigators found these hires were not isolated but part of a wider system of “fake jobs”.
In 2023, after a seven-year investigation, Le Pen was ordered to stand trial alongside more than two dozen other defendants over the alleged misuse of EU funds – charges she and her party contested.
Le Pen was previously banned from holding public office for five years on 31 March 2025 after being found guilty of embezzling €1.4m (£1.2m) in European parliament funds to pay her party employees between 2004 and 2016 through such a scheme.
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