Marine Le Pen, the leading figure of France’s far-right movement and one of the frontrunners for the country’s presidency, is expected to find out on Tuesday whether she will be eligible to contest next year’s presidential election when a Paris Court of Appeal delivers its ruling on her bid to overturn a ban preventing her from holding elected office.
The court’s decision will determine whether National Rally enters the presidential race with its long-time leader, Marine Le Pen, 57, or her 30-year-old protégé, Jordan Bardella, as the party’s candidate to succeed outgoing President Emmanuel Macron.
Although National Rally currently holds a comfortable lead in opinion polls, Marine Le Pen—who finished third in the 2012 presidential election before losing runoff contests to Emmanuel Macron in 2017 and 2022—has maintained that she is ready for whatever outcome the court delivers.
“I’m not scared,” she said this week. “If I can run, I will – as long as I can campaign.” But her allies concede her ineligibility would be a major blow. “It would be a kind of personal grief if it happened,” one RN lawmaker, Thomas Ménagé, told reporters.
In a landmark ruling that drew international attention, a lower French court in March last year sentenced Marine Le Pen to a four-year prison term—two years of which were suspended—and barred her from holding public office for five years after finding her guilty of embezzling funds from the European Parliament.
The court found Marine Le Pen guilty alongside 24 former members of the European Parliament, parliamentary assistants, accountants, and the National Rally itself, ruling that they operated a scheme between 2004 and 2016 that diverted European Parliament funds to pay party staff working in France.
Le Pen has maintained that her party was the target of a “witch-hunt” and, together with 11 co-defendants, appealed the ruling. During the appeal hearing, she denied that the National Rally operated any scheme to misappropriate the several million euros in question, insisting the party had acted “in complete good faith.”
According to prosecutors, after taking over leadership of the National Rally in 2011, Marine Le Pen “professionalised” a system of diverting European Parliament funds that they say originated under her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. They are asking the court to uphold her five-year ban from holding public office and impose a four-year prison sentence, with three years suspended.
Several possible outcomes have been outlined by observers. The most favourable outcome for Marine Le Pen—though considered by most analysts to be the least likely—would be an acquittal. During the appeal hearing, she admitted “a mistake,” saying some staff whose salaries were paid through EU parliamentary assistant funds had worked in France, but maintained she believed the arrangement was permitted.
Another possibility is that the court could uphold Marine Le Pen’s conviction while reducing her ban from holding elected office to two years or less, or removing it entirely. Since the lower court ordered the ban to take immediate effect, Le Pen has been subject to it since March 31 last year.
Should the disqualification be cut to two years or less, it would lapse before the opening round of France’s presidential election on April 18, 2027. Even so, Marine Le Pen may still be unable to mount a campaign if she is required to serve a prison sentence or remain under electronic surveillance.
“If I’m allowed to be a candidate, but am effectively prevented from campaigning freely – then you understand, that wouldn’t be possible,” Le Pen told French television last week. “I can’t be dependent on a judge to authorise me to campaign.”
Another option before the appeals court is to uphold the immediate enforcement of any ban from elected office, mirroring the lower court’s decision. In that event, Marine Le Pen would still have the right to seek a final review from France’s Court of Cassation, which has previously said it intends to rule before the presidential election takes place.
Despite having the option of a further appeal, Marine Le Pen has suggested she is unlikely to take that route, saying continued legal uncertainty could undermine her party’s campaign. “You can’t launch a presidential campaign at the last minute,” she said during the appeal hearing.
Opinion polls indicate that both Le Pen—who reshaped the National Rally from a marginal nationalist party into the largest political force in France’s parliament—and her protégé, Jordan Bardella, are well positioned to top the first round of the 2027 presidential election and secure places in the runoff.
Left-wing and centrist opponents of the National Rally argue that a presidential bid by Jordan Bardella could be hampered by questions over his political experience and comparatively lower public recognition, which they believe may work against him during the campaign.
In recent weeks, Jordan Bardella has faced questions from the media, as well as criticism from members of the National Rally, over how his widely publicised relationship with Princess Maria Carolina de Bourbon-Two Sicilies could be viewed by the working-class voters who make up a significant part of the party’s support base.
Although officials of the National Rally insist that Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella remain united and would campaign together regardless of who becomes the party’s presidential candidate, differences have surfaced between them, particularly on economic policy, with Bardella favouring a more free-market approach.
Opinion polls offer mixed projections for the presidential runoff, with some indicating that Marine Le Pen would defeat both left-wing figure Jean-Luc Mélenchon and centrist former prime ministers Gabriel Attal and Édouard Philippe.
Other surveys, however, indicate that Édouard Philippe—who is also seeking to attract centre-right voters—would defeat either far-right contender in a head-to-head runoff.
