Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French far-right party Rassemblement National (RN), was found guilty of suspected embezzlement of public EU funds in the case of parliamentary assistants of her party in the European Parliament. The party chief was sentenced to a four-year prison term, with two years of which will be suspended and she will have to wear an electronic tag during that time. A significant fine was also imposed. In an interview with TF1 in the evening, Le Pen presented herself as a fighter, saying she was not willing to “submit to a democratic refusal”.
Before the final verdict, the three-time presidential candidate and opposition leader left the Paris courthouse to meet with the RN’s leadership staff at the party’s headquarters in the French capital in the afternoon. The evening interview with TF1 followed.
She accused the court of a “violation of the rule of law” and stated that she was now more “combative” than ever and ready to run in the 2027 presidential election, provided the final sentence, to be determined in the appeal process, allows her to do so.
As previously announced by her lawyer in the morning, Le Pen confirmed that she would appeal the sentence. The 56-year-old politician ruled out a withdrawal from politics, appealing to the justice system to “hurry up” to organize the necessary appeal process. In the TF1 interview, Le Pen said:
“The court’s reasoning is clear: ‘I will make you immediately ineligible and I do this to prevent you from being elected as the president of the republic.’ If that’s not a political decision, I don’t know what is. This is a calamitous day for our democracy and our country.”
The court’s justification for the sentence has a length of 154 pages, according to Le Monde. The RN’s chairman, Jordan Bardella, sharply criticized the guilty verdict of the party’s president in a X-comment: “It’s not just Marine Le Pen who was unjustly convicted today: it’s the execution of French democracy.”
Le Pen’s niece, the conservative politician Marion Maréchal, also commented on X, saying: “Judges who think they are above the sovereign people have decided to condemn in a courtroom the one who they could never defeat at the ballot box. Marine Le Pen led our camp on the path to victory. That’s her only crime and that’s why she’s being convicted.