French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has been convicted of misusing public funds and sentenced to a five-year ban from holding public office. This verdict represents a significant blow to Le Pen's political career.
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04-05, 2025Le Pen, 56, was also handed a four-year prison sentence, with two years suspended and the remaining term to be served under house arrest. As the leader of the National Rally, Le Pen has unsuccessfully run for president three times, and this ruling means she will be unable to participate in the next presidential election.
Despite this, opinion polls had shown Le Pen as a frontrunner for the 2027 presidential election after successfully pushing her party into the mainstream. Currently, the National Rally has initiated the process of finding a replacement leader to continue their political goals.
Marine Le Pen, her party, and over twenty party members were accused of misappropriating more than 3.9 million euros (approximately $6.8 million USD) from the European Union. Prosecutors alleged that Le Pen was the central figure in a "system" established by the party to divert funds from the European Parliament to her personal staff. This money was intended for European Parliament assistants but was actually used to pay the salaries of employees working for the party between 2004 and 2016. Eight other former or current party members were also convicted. The defendants were not accused of pocketing the money for themselves, but rather of using EU funds to benefit their party. Le Pen has denied any wrongdoing, and the defendants in the case argued that the charges relied on an overly narrow definition of parliamentary assistants.
During the court proceedings, prosecutors stated that the National Rally used monthly EU parliamentary allowances of 21,000 euros (approximately $36,000 USD) to pay employee salaries in France, concealing the scheme behind "fictitious" positions in the European Parliament offices. The judge stated, "It has been established that all these people were in fact working for the party, and that no tasks were assigned to them by their European parliamentarians." The court ruled that Le Pen employed four party members as parliamentary assistants, including her personal assistant and bodyguard. The ruling described the misuse of funds as a "circumvention of democracy," deceiving the parliament and voters and violating EU regulations. Judge Bénédicte de Perthuis said Le Pen's actions "seriously and durably attacked the rules of democratic life in Europe, and particularly in France."
According to the French newspaper Le Monde, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) received an anonymous tip as early as 2014 regarding fictitious employment cases involving the party and its leader, Le Pen. This led to an investigation that examined the actions of Le Pen's chief of staff and bodyguard, who also appeared as her parliamentary assistants. The case gained greater importance when the then-President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, submitted information regarding irregularities in payments to other assistants to OLAF. In 2015, France launched a preliminary investigation, collecting a range of documents from multiple locations, including the party headquarters. An organizational chart from 2015 also revealed that 16 European parliamentarians and 20 parliamentary assistants held official positions within the party that were unrelated to their duties as EU parliamentary staff. Subsequent investigations found that some assistants were contractually linked to different European parliamentarians but actually worked for others, suggesting a scheme to transfer European funds to France to pay the salaries of party employees. In 2016, France launched a judicial investigation. The investigation remained ongoing while Le Pen participated in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections, losing to Emmanuel Macron. After a nine-year investigation, in December 2023, French judges called for Le Pen and 27 other senior members of the National Rally to stand trial, accusing them of misusing public funds.
Le Pen vehemently criticized the verdict and stated that she would appeal. In the front row of the courtroom, Le Pen did not immediately react when the judge first announced her guilty verdict. But as the details of the sentence became more detailed, she grew more agitated. She shook her head in disagreement when the judge said Le Pen's party had illegally used European funds for its own benefit. "Unbelievable," she whispered at one point. She then left without a word, grabbing her bag and striding out. Later, in an interview with French business television TF1, she said she would take every possible legal avenue to continue her political career. "I will not let myself be eliminated like this. I will take every possible legal avenue. There is a small path. It is certainly narrow, but it does exist," she said, urging the judiciary to hold an appeal hearing quickly so that she could still participate in the 2027 vote. "I will appeal as soon as possible," she said, adding that the judiciary should "speed things up" so that the appeal could be heard in time. "I will appeal because I am innocent," she said.
Former US President Donald Trump compared Le Pen's conviction for fraud and ban from running for office to his own legal battles. "She's barred from running for five years, and she's the leading candidate. It sounds like this country, sounds a lot like this country," Trump said, describing the court's ruling as "a very big thing." The Kremlin, billionaire Elon Musk, and hardline European politicians ranging from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to Geert Wilders in the Netherlands have all condemned the verdict.
