On Monday, Le Pen was handed the sentence that bars her from seeking office for the next five years and was sentenced to four years in prison, but half of that will be suspended, according to the Wall Street Journal. The remaining two can be served with her wearing an electronic bracelet. The decision has thrown the political landscape into chaos as the National Rally party is now in limbo.
The next presidential race in France is set to take place in 2027, and she will be forbidden from making a bid for president. The court ruled that Le Pen as well as the other party members misused 4.4 million euros that was meant to pay assistants to lawmakers in the European Parliament for labor. Instead, the judges, said, the funds were illegally used to pay staffers in the party who were not involved with work in parliament.
“Today it’s not only Marine Le Pen that has been unjustly condemned. It’s French democracy that’s being executed,” the president of the National Rally party, Jordan Bardella, said of the ruling. Le Pen has called the case a "witch hunt," similar to how President Donald Trump characterized the legal cases against him which were ultimately dropped.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote on X, "Je suis Marine!" riffing on the saying "Je suis Charlie," which was a rallying cry to support free expression and speech in light of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in 2015.
Le Pen was one of the top candidates going into the 2027 election and stormed out of the room before the judge finished reading off the sentence. "There are 11 million people who voted for the movement I represent. So tomorrow, potentially, millions and millions of French people would see themselves deprived of their candidate in the election," Le Pen said before the court's sentencing. The politician said she felt that the court was “only interested” in stopping her from running for president in 2027, per ABC News.
