Le Pen and 23 others on Monday were convicted of misappropriating funds from the European Parliament and were handed a mixture of fines, suspended prison sentences and bans. The three judge-panel took the extraordinary — though not unprecedented — step of enacting Le Pen’s ban immediately, regardless of whether she appealed.
Despite the seemingly insurmountable odds, Le Pen insisted that standing in the 2027 presidential election — for which she is a frontrunner — remained possible. She urged the justice system to hear her appeal quickly but retrials usually occur several months after the initial verdict, at a minimum, narrowing Le Pen’s window of opportunity.
“There is a small path — it is certainly narrow — but it exists,” Le Pen said.
Le Pen and members the National Rally have framed the court’s decision as a democratic scandal, upending the will of millions of voters who have cast ballots for their party as it has surged in popularity in recent years. That view has been echoed by Elon Musk, adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, as well as the party’s populist allies across Europe.
“This evening, millions of French people are indignant, indignant to an unimaginable extent seeing that in France, the country of human rights, judges have implemented practices that were thought to be the preserve of authoritarian regimes,” Le Pen said.
After the verdict was delivered, the party launched an online petition to “save democracy.”
