The leader of France’s far-right National Rally, Marine Le Pen, said on Tuesday she would run for president next year after an embezzlement conviction was confirmed on appeal, a ruling she said she would challenge before the country’s highest court.
Issued on: 07/07/2026 – 15:25Modified: 07/07/2026 – 20:57
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“This evening, I am a candidate in the presidential election,” she said, ending uncertainty over whether she would run for the top job for the fourth time in elections viewed as her party’s best ever chance to win the presidency.
The Paris appeals court earlier on Tuesday upheld a guilty verdict against the three-time presidential hopeful over a fake jobs scam at the European Parliament that diverted more than 2.8 million euros (more than $3 million) in EU funds.
It banned her from office for 15 months and sentenced her to one year under house arrest to be served with an electronic tag, throwing into doubt whether she would be able to campaign unhindered.
But the 57-year-old veteran politician on the evening news said she would appeal that decision with the country’s highest court, which would automatically suspend that decision.
“The appeal to the court of cassation suspends the effects of the judgement, so I will campaign without an electronic ankle bracelet,” she said on the evening news.
A lower court in March last year had initially sentenced her to a five-year ban from public office, quashing her ambitions to succeed outgoing centrist President Emmanuel Macron in next year’s polls.
15-month ban
Backdated to March 2025, the new 15-month ban from office expired this year, clearing the way for Le Pen to run in polls set for April and May 2027.
But it was not immediately certain if she would run after she said last week she would withdraw if wearing a tag prevented her from campaigning and pass the torch to her 30-year-old lieutenant Jordan Bardella.
Under France’s house arrest system, a magistrate can approve times at which someone with an ankle tag can leave their home, and pre-approve outings nationwide.
Macron, visiting Syria on Tuesday, said he would not comment on a court decision.
In the northern town of Henin-Beaumont, an RN stronghold, 57-year-old plasterer Pierre Pagniez said he expected Le Pen to run.
“They need to stop trying to trip her up,” he said, adding he preferred the three-time presidential candidate to the much less experienced Bardella.
Socialist party leader Olivier Faure was among leftists who said Le Pen should not run next year, as any candidate should be “exemplary”.
“Le Pen, now, is alone with her conscience,” he said.
Guilty of misusing funds
The appeal court upheld the lower court’s March 2025 ruling that Le Pen and other members of her party, then known as the National Front, used European Parliament funds intended for parliamentary assistants to pay for party staff between 2004 and 2016.
The appeal court agreed that the funds had been misused.
“The offences are serious,” presiding judge Michèle Agi said, referring to the amount of money involved and how long it went on for.
The lower court found that Le Pen played a central role in the scheme, a claim she has repeatedly rejected, but which the appeal court upheld.
Of the ten other people who appealed alongside Le Pen, she received the largest fine and was the only one who received a prison sentence that was not fully suspended.
Louis Aliot, the party’s vice president, was also found guilty. He received a one-year suspended prison sentence and a two-year suspended ban on standing for public office, allowing him to remain mayor of Perpignan.
(with newswires)
