Marine Le Pen sentenced to house arrest, 2027 presidential candidacy remains uncertain

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s bid to run in next year’s presidential elections remained uncertain on Tuesday after an appeals court in Paris sentenced her to a year in prison under house arrest with an electronic card and upheld a ban on holding public office linked to the scandal of fake jobs in the European Parliament.The Court of Appeal convicted Le Pen in a fake jobs fraud case involving the European Parliament, but reduced her sentence from a previous ruling. She was banned from holding public office for 15 months and sentenced to a year under house arrest to be served with an electronic card.The ban, which dates back to March 2025, is expected to expire later this year, which could allow the 57-year-old National Rally leader to run in presidential elections scheduled for April-May 2027.

However, Le Pen said she may not run if the ruling prevents her from campaigning effectively.A lower court last year sentenced Le Pen to a five-year ban from holding public office and two years in prison, putting the three-time presidential candidate’s hopes of succeeding outgoing President Emmanuel Macron in jeopardy.Le Pen is expected to announce later on Tuesday whether she will enter the presidential race or whether she will hand over the National Rally party’s nomination to party president Jordan Bardella (30 years old).

“I’m not afraid,” Le Pen said last week. “If I could run, I would, as long as I could campaign.”Le Pen ranked third in the French presidential elections in 2012 before reaching a run-off against Macron in 2017 and 2022.The case centers on allegations that Le Pen, the National Rally and several party officials misused European Parliament funds between 2004 and 2016 by employing party staff in France using funds earmarked for parliamentary assistants.The original trial found Le Pen, along with 24 former European lawmakers, aides, accountants and the party itself, guilty of running the scheme. Le Pen asserted that the National Rally was the victim of a “witch hunt,” while judges involved in the case reportedly received death threats.Le Pen, the party and 10 others appealed the ruling. During the appeal, she denied that the National Rally had run a system to embezzle European Parliament funds, and said the party had acted in “complete good faith.”Prosecutors said that after taking over the party’s leadership in 2011, Le Pen “professionalized” a system that had allegedly been introduced under her father, National Rally co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen. They sought to keep the five-year ban in place and demanded a four-year prison sentence, suspended for three years.Despite its legal problems, recent opinion polls indicate that the far right is likely to lead the first round of next year’s presidential elections.

Opinion polls remain divided on the outcome of the run-off, with some suggesting Bardella may do slightly better than Le Pen, while others see Le Pen as a stronger contender.Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said: “This woman is very intelligent, and she did not come here by chance. If she also runs for a fourth time, she will not be an opponent we can mock.”A Harris Interactive Tolauna poll conducted in May predicted that Le Pen would win the runoff against Mélenchon as well as former centrist prime ministers Gabriel Attal and Edouard Philippe if she was allowed to run. But other opinion polls indicated that Philippe may defeat the far-right candidate in the second round of voting.