Marine Le Pen announces that she will run for president and will appeal the sentence that condemns her for embezzlement

The far-right French leader Marine Le Pen will be a candidate in the 2027 presidential elections. It was unlikely that after the forceful sentence that condemned her to four years in prison and five years of disqualification in March 2025 for embezzlement of public funds could run for president, but an unexpected judicial plot twist will make it possible. "The French will have the freedom to choose. They will have the last word," Le Pen assured this evening in an interview on TF1 in which she announced that she will run for president despite being convicted.The leader of the National Rally also stated that she will appeal to the Court of Cassation – the equivalent of the Spanish Supreme Court – the sentence that has convicted her, a fact that adds uncertainty to her presidential candidacy. If the high court ends up confirming the verdict, Le Pen will have to campaign and participate in the presidential elections under house arrest and with an electronic ankle bracelet. If she were elected president, she would move to the Elysée with the electronic bracelet. It would be an absurd situation with no precedents.French justice has made public this Tuesday a tailor-made ruling so that Le Pen can be a candidate in the presidential elections. The Paris Court of Appeal has confirmed the first-instance conviction, but has shortened her prison and disqualification period, which left the door open for Le Pen to run in the elections, scheduled for the spring of next year. The court has imposed a sentence of three years in prison, of which only one is firm.House arrest

However, Le Pen will not enter any penitentiary center: she will have to serve the 12 months under house arrest with an electronic bracelet. The convicted person, however, could request a reduction of the house arrest, and if the judge accepts the request, she would only have to serve six months. In any case, if the future candidate appeals the decision, it is most likely that the sentence will be suspended until the Court of Cassation rules. It is expected to do so in January 2027 and, a priori, it would be then when the far-right leader would have to begin her house arrest. The high court only rules on the legality of the sentence, not on the merits.Regarding the disqualification – which is the key to Marine Le Pen's political future – the court has sentenced her to 45 months of disqualification, of which only 15 are final. As she was convicted in the first instance on March 31, 2025, she has already served the disqualification sentence. Legally, she has a clear path to be a candidate. This is the major new development in Tuesday's decision. The number two of RN –Jordan Bardella is the formal president– has benefited from a recent reform aimed at alleviating prison overcrowding, which provides that a part of prison sentences remain suspended and do not have to be served within penitentiary centers. But the court has also taken into account the political situation and its desire not to interfere in a presidential election. The president of the court, Michèle Agi, has made it clear, emphasizing that the ruling has taken into account the guarantee of "the elector's freedom of choice, an indispensable condition for the expression of democratic suffrage." And she added: "Ignoring this would violate the principle of freedom of candidacies, an essential condition for the expression […] of universal democratic suffrage." In other words, it acknowledges that the ruling has been issued in such a way that Le Pen, despite being convicted, can be a candidate.Bracelet campaign

Before the ruling became public, Le Pen had conditioned her candidacy on not being convicted of any crime and not wearing an electronic bracelet. "When one is a candidate for the presidential elections, one must have absolute freedom of movement and cannot depend on a magistrate to authorize you to go to a rally in Romorantin or to a market in Hénin-Beaumont," Marine Le Pen said last week on the LCI channel. The electronic bracelet greatly limits the movements of the convicted person: a movement perimeter is established and they must comply with house arrest schedules.

This evening, she added another big surprise to the announcement that she was backing down and would run in the elections: the announcement of an appeal against a ruling that allows her to be a candidate for the presidency. It is a risky and uncertain decision. It is not entirely clear – she has been deliberately ambiguous when asked about it in the TF1 interview – what will happen if the Court of Cassation uphirms the ruling in January. Will she then, three months before the presidential elections, give up being the candidate?

What Marine Le Pen explained this evening is that she will conduct the election campaign hand-in-hand with her protégé, Jordan Bardella. It will be a "binominal" candidacy, and Le Pen maintains that the intention is to appoint him prime minister if she becomes president. It is, in reality, a way of continuing to give Bardella prominence so that he can be the presidential candidate if she finally withdraws. The MEP, only 30 years old, has long gained public prominence and regularly appears alongside Le Pen at rallies. Four years ago, he succeeded his political mentor as party president and in the latest election polls, he appears to be better positioned than the party leader.

Le Pen had appealed against the 2025 ruling, which sentenced her to five years of disqualification in the case of parliamentary assistants of the National Front – which in 2018 would become the current RN – in the European Parliament. Justice stated in the ruling that Le Pen was "at the heart of a management system" that since 2009 had been "emptying" the funds that the European Parliament allocates to pay parliamentary assistants, and that she diverted the money for the benefit of her party. The ruling of the Court of Appeal confirms the crime and condemns not only the party leader, but also 10 other leaders of the far-right formation – including Louis Aliot, vice-president of RN and mayor of Perpignan – for embezzlement of public funds.