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FRENCH FAR-RIGHT leader Marine Le Pen has called a court’s decision to ban her from running for office after her conviction over a fake jobs scheme a “political decision” and vowed to appeal the move “as quickly as possible”.
Le Pen was banned for five years as part of a conviction for creating fake jobs at the EU parliament on behalf of her National Rally (RN) party.
The court specified that the sanction should come into force with immediate effect if an appeal is lodged.
If it stands, this would mean she would be unable to launch a fourth campaign to capture the Elysee, where analysts believe she had her best ever chance of becoming president, making it an incredible moment in French politics.
The judge also gave Le Pen a four-year prison term, which is to be served outside jail with an electronic tag, drawing immediate criticism from her party and other far-right leaders across Europe. The final two years of the sentence will be suspended pending certain conditions.
Including 56-year-old Le Pen, nine figures from her RN party were convicted over a scheme where they took advantage of European Parliament expenses to employ assistants who were actually working for the party.
Le Pen dramatically left the courtroom before the judge announced the prison sentence, and a crisis meeting was convened at the party’s Paris headquarters.
In a combative interview with the commercial French television network TF1 this evening, the RN leader said she would appeal the “political decision”, and vowed that in “no way” would she retire from political life.
“I’m not going to let myself be eliminated like this. I’m going to pursue whatever legal avenues I can. There is a small path. It’s certainly narrow, but it exists,” she said.
She said that the appeal would be lodged “as quickly as possible” and said that the judiciary should “get a move on” so it is heard in time.
Describing herself as the “favourite” to win the 2027 presidential elections, Le Pen characterised the judge who delivered the verdict as saying: “‘I do not want Marine Le Pen elected’” and lashed out at “‘practices we thought were for authoritarian regimes”.
“I am going to appeal because I am innocent,” Le Pen said, while acknowledging that as things stood now “I am eliminated” from the presidential race.
Twelve assistants were also convicted of concealing a crime, with the court estimating the scheme was worth €2.9 million. All the RN officials, including Le Pen, were banned from running for office.
“The court took into consideration, in addition to the risk of reoffending, the major disturbance of public order if a person already convicted… was a candidate in the presidential election,” said presiding judge Benedicte de Perthuis.
Prosecutors in the case had previously asked the court to impose a five-year jail term and a five-year ban on holding public office on Le Pen.
Prosecutors accused the National Rally party of easing pressure on its own finances by using a €21,000 monthly allowance for MEPs to pay party members instead of parliamentary assistants, which was “organised” and “strengthened” when Le Pen took over as party leader.
They said that they hid the scheme behind “fictitious” posts in the European legislature’s offices.
“It was established that all these people were actually working for the party, that their MEP had not assigned them any tasks,” said the judge.
Le Pen told La Tribune Dimanche newspaper yesterday that the verdict gives the “judge’s the right of life or death over our movement”. But she did not believe the judge would issue the ban.
She said after the prosecutors’ demands were announced that they were seeking “my political death” and accused them of denying the French a free choice at the next elections.
Prosecutors have insisted there has been no “harassment” of the National Rally (RN).
There has been reaction from other far-right leaders to the sentencing, with the Kremlin claiming that Le Pen’s conviction shows Europe was “violating democratic norms”.
“More and more European capitals are going down the path of violating democratic norms,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a briefing when asked about the decision.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has also expressed his solidarity with Le Pen in a social media post.
Je suis Marine! @MLP_officiel
— Orbán Viktor (@PM_ViktorOrban) March 31, 2025
US President Donald Trump’s administration also weighed in this evening, with State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce saying: “exclusion of people from the political process is particularly concerning given the aggressive and corrupt lawfare waged against President Trump here in the United States.”
Meanwhile, Elon Musk, who has backed a far-right party in Germany and plays a major role in Trump’s administration, said the move would “backfire, like the legal attacks against President Trump”.
There was also unease within the political mainstream in France with the leader of MPs in parliament of the right-wing Republicans, Laurent Wauquiez, saying “political debates should be decided at the ballot box”.
Prime Minister Francois Bayrou was meanwhile “troubled” by the verdict, a person close to him told AFP, asking not to be named.
With her RN emerging as the single largest party in France’s parliament after the 2024 legislative elections, polls predicted Le Pen would easily top the first round of voting in 2027 and make the second round two-candidate run-off.
Incumbent President Emmanuel Macron cannot run in that election because of a constitutional two-term limit.
With today’s sentencing, waiting in the wings is her protege and RN party leader Jordan Bardella, aged 29, who is not under investigation in the case.
But there are doubts even within the party over the so-called “Plan B” and whether he has the experience for a presidential campaign.
Le Pen took over as head of the then-National Front in 2011 but rapidly took steps towards making the party an electoral force and shaking off the controversial legacy of its co-founder and her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died earlier this year and who was often accused of making racist and anti-Semitic comments.
She renamed it the National Rally and embarked on a policy known as “dediabolisation” (de-demonisation) with the stated aim of making it acceptable to a wider range of voters.
With reporting from Jane Moore, Eoghan Dalton and Muiris O’Cearbhaill
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