Last week, she sought to refer her five-year ban from electoral politics to the European Court of Human Rights, and requested a review by France’s constitutional watchdog, the Constitutional Council. Le Pen had previously excoriated both institutions for their alleged meddling in French democracy, and yet it is now those very courts that may throw her the lifeline she needs.
Since the European court cannot intervene until Le Pen has exhausted all her possibilities for appeal in France, however, her best — and really only — hope of overturning the electoral ban is by what’s known as a “priority question” to the Constitutional Council.
This question won’t address Le Pen’s innocence or guilt. Instead, it will seek to ask whether the Paris criminal court had a right to deny voters the chance to support the presidential front-runner while she’s still appealing against conviction and is, therefore, innocent in the eyes of the law.
For its part, the appeals court has three months to decide whether to send the priority question to France’s highest appeals court — the Cour de Cassation — which, in turn, has three months to reject the request or send it to the Constitutional Council. The council then has another three months to make its decision.
Meanwhile, after pressure from the government, the Paris Court of Appeal has agreed to give Le Pen an “early” trial date and promised a decision by next summer.
All this means the populist French firebrand does, indeed, have a realistic chance of overturning her electoral ban before the March 2027 deadline to file her candidacy for the presidential race.
Le Pen’s chances of completely reversing her conviction and prison sentence are small, as the evidence against her is overwhelming. But if the appeals court reverses the lower court’s decision to make her five-year electoral ban immediate (while still confirming her conviction), the prohibition could be suspended until all her other appeals — which will likely last at least two years — are exhausted, allowing her to run for president.
So, Le Pen’s political fate has not been fully decided. She might be down, but she is definitely not out — yet.