French presidential election: National Rally leader Marine Le Pen barred from seeking public office for embezzlement

The judge has not yet said how long Ms Le Pen will be ineligible for running for public office. Ms Le Pen did not wait around to find out after the verdict on Monday.

In a moment of high drama, she got up and left, walking out of the court and then the courthouse before she was driven away.

Le Pen, sitting in the front row in the Paris court, showed no immediate reaction as the chief judge declared her guilty.

She later repeatedly nodded her head in disagreement as the judge went into greater detail, saying Ms Le Pen’s party had illegally used European Parliament money for its own benefit.

“Incredible,” she whispered at one point.

The judge also handed down guilty verdicts to eight other current or former members of her party who, like her, previously served as European Parliament legislators.

Ms Le Pen and her co-defendants face up to 10 years in prison.

They can appeal, which would lead to another trial.

The verdict was shaping up as a resounding defeat for Ms Le Pen and her party.

As well as finding her and eight other former European legislators guilty of embezzling public funds, the court also handed down guilty verdicts to 12 other people who served as parliamentary aides for Ms Le Pen and what is now the National Rally party, formerly the National Front.

The chief judge, who read the ruling delivered by her and two other justices, said Ms Le Pen had been at the heart of “a system” that her party used to siphon off EU parliament money.

The judge said Ms Le Pen and other co-defendants did not enrich themselves personally.

But the ruling described the embezzlement as “a democratic bypass” that deceived the parliament and voters.

Ms Le Pen and 24 other officials from the National Rally were accused of having used money intended for European Union parliamentary aides to pay staff who worked for the party between 2004 and 2016, in violation of the 27-nation bloc’s regulations.

Ms Le Pen and her co-defendants denied wrongdoing.

Ms Le Pen, 56, was runner-up to President Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections, and her party’s electoral support has grown in recent years.

During the nine-week trial that took place in late 2024, she argued that ineligibility “would have the effect of depriving me of being a presidential candidate” and disenfranchise her supporters.

“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,” she told the panel of three judges.

If Ms Le Pen cannot run in 2027, her seeming natural successor would be Jordan Bardella, Ms Le Pen’s 29-year-old protege who succeeded her at the helm of the party in 2021.

Ms Le Pen denied accusations she was at the head of the system meant to siphon off EU parliament money to benefit her party, which she led from 2011 to 2021.

She argued instead that it was acceptable to adapt the work of the aides paid by the European Parliament to the needs of the legislators, including some political work related to the party.

Hearings showed that some EU money was used to pay for Ms Le Pen’s bodyguard — who was once her father’s bodyguard — as well as her personal assistant.

Prosecutors requested a two-year prison sentence and a five-year period of ineligibility for Ms Le Pen.

Ms Le Pen said she felt they were “only interested” in preventing her from running for president.