Marine Le Pen, the long-time leader of France’s Rassemblement National (formerly Front National), was convicted on 31 March 2025 of embezzling European Parliament funds and sentenced to a four-year prison term, two years suspended, two years to be served under electronic monitoring, together with a five-year ban from holding elected office, applied immediately under the provisional-execution mechanism (exécution provisoire).
The Paris correctional court found that between 2004 and 2016 Le Pen and her party had used the parliamentary-assistant budget of MEPs to pay staff who in fact worked full-time for the party in France, in breach of EU rules. Twenty-four other defendants, including current and former MEPs and party officials, were also convicted.
A verdict that reshapes 2027
By the time of the verdict, Le Pen was the runaway front-runner in early 2027 presidential polling, having lost three previous bids and gradually softened the party’s image. The immediate five-year ban, bypassing the normal suspensive effect of an appeal, would, if upheld, keep her off the ballot.
Her lawyer, Rodolphe Bosselut, announced an appeal within hours, and on the same evening Jordan Bardella, RN’s 29-year-old party president, was confirmed as Le Pen’s designated replacement candidate should the ban remain in force.
What the court found
The prosecution centred on 12 fictitious or hybrid parliamentary-assistant contracts. Court-appointed forensic accountants traced more than €4 million in EU funds to RN headquarters, party bookkeepers, and a press officer who was actually a body-guard. The damages to the European Parliament were ultimately set at €4.4 million, to be repaid jointly and severally by the defendants and the party itself.
Presiding judge Bénédicte de Perthuis told the court the system had been “in place industrially, systematically and very early.” She rejected the defence argument that the line between assistant and party worker had simply been blurred.
Reactions, at home and abroad
Far-right allies including Italy’s Matteo Salvini and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán denounced the ruling as judicial overreach. President Emmanuel Macron’s allies were largely silent, mindful of provoking sympathy for Le Pen. The Conseil constitutionnel earlier in the month had upheld the provisional-execution mechanism against a challenge by another defendant, paving the way for its use in the verdict.
Markets briefly reacted to the news with a small rally in French sovereign bonds, before retracing on uncertainty over Bardella’s electoral appeal.
