Fury as court bans Marine Le Pen from presidential run and hits her with four-year jail term: Europe’s hard-right condemns ‘system… that throws aside any candidate who’s too right-wing’

A Paris court has banned French National Rally leader Marine Le Pen from standing in the next election while slapping her with a four-year jail term in a move that has sparked fury among Europe’s hard-right.

Le Pen, 56, was handed a five-year ban from holding public office after being convicted of embezzlement by a court in France today, preventing her run for president in 2027 against Emmanuel Macron.

She was also given an £84,000 fine as well as a four-year jail sentence which will be suspended for two years with the remaining time spent fitted with an electronic bracelet – but she is likely to appeal.

The decision is a devastating blow for the presidential hopeful and head of the National Rally (RN) party that is leading polls for the 2027 presidential race. She had previously stated this would be her fourth and final attempt at the French presidency.

It comes as Le Pen and dozens of other party officials were found guilty of misappropriating around £397,000, in particular for the contracts of her bodyguard, Thierry Légier, and her former parliamentary attaché and ex-sister-in-law, Catherine Griset. 

Following the announcement of the ban, several hard-right political allies have flocked to social media to share messages of support to Le Pen.

National Rally party chief Jordan Bardella, took to X to share a post reading: ‘Today it is not only Marine Le Pen who was unjustly condemned: It was French democracy that was killed.’

Bardella, 29, was not among the accused in the trial and is also seen as a potential presidential contender should Marine Le Pen fall. 

Le Pen, 56, was handed a five-year ban from holding public office after being convicted of embezzlement by a court in France today

The presidential hopeful stormed out of the courtroom before hearing the details of her ban

Le Pen was also given an £84,000 fine as well as a four-year jail sentence which will be suspended for two years with the remaining time spent fitted with an electronic bracelet – but she is likely to appeal

In a documentary broadcast by BFMTV late on Sunday, Le Pen for the first time gave her blessing to Bardella becoming president. 

‘Of course he has the capacity to become president of the republic,’ she said. 

Also taking a public stand against Le Pen’s sentence, Eric Ciotti, the former president of centre-right republicans said: ‘The democratic destiny of our nation confiscated by an outrageous judicial cabal. 

‘The favoured candidate in the presidential election prevented from running. This is not a simple dysfunction. It is a system to capture power that systematically throws aside any candidate that is too far on the right and who has a chance of winning.’

But Eric Zimmour, president of the far-right Reconquest Party slammed the sentence, saying: ‘It is not for judges to decide who the people must vote for. Whatever our disagreements, Marine Le Pen is legitimate to present herself for the vote.’

Matteo Salvini, Italy’s hard-right deputy prime minister shared a similar message, stating: ‘People who are afraid of the judgment of the voters are often reassured by the judgment of the courts.

‘In Paris they have condemned Marine Le Pen and would like to exclude her from political life – an ugly film that we are also seeing in other countries such as Romania.

‘The ruling against Marine Le Pen is a declaration of war by Brussels, at a time when the warlike impulses of Von der Leyen and Macron are frightening. We will not be intimidated, we will not stop: full steam ahead my friend!’

The Kremlin on Monday also blasted the French court’s ruling to bar Le Pen from running for office over a fake jobs scheme.

National Rally party chief Jordan Bardella, took to X to share words of support to the party leader following her conviction 

Eric Zimmour, president of the far-right Reconquest Party slammed the sentence, slammed the sentence, claiming ‘it is not up to judges to decide who the people should vote for’

Matteo Salvini, Italy’s hard-right deputy prime minister shared a similar message on X

Hungarian Prime Minister Orban Viktor pledged his support to Le Pen

‘Well, indeed, more and more European capitals are going down the path of trampling over democratic norms. Of course, we do not want to interfere in France’s internal affairs, we have never done so, and this is France’s internal affair,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a briefing when asked about the decision. 

‘But in general, our observations of European capitals show that they are not at all reluctant to go beyond democracy during the political process,’ he added.

Also displaying public support to the politician, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban posted on X: ‘Je suis Marine!’, translating to I am Marine!, following her recent ban from French politics.

During the reading of the verdict, which Le Pen stormed out of before hearing the duration of her ban, Judge Perthuis said Le Pen’s actions amounted to a ‘serious and lasting attack on the rules of democratic life in Europe, but especially in France.’ 

In a hard-hitting judgement, magistrates also accused Le Pen of ‘undermining democracy’.

They wrote: ‘Marine Le Pen has been at the heart of this illegal system since 2009. The events have seriously and lastingly undermined the rules of democracy. This is an enrichment of the party, a circumvention of the rules governing political party financing, and therefore a circumvention of democracy.’

Aside from Le Pen, former parliamentary attaché and ex-sister-in-law, Catherine Griset was handled a one-year suspended prison sentence and a two-year electoral ban. 

Louis Aliot, former number two of the National Rally, has been sentenced to 18 months in jail, with ten months suspended. The remainder will be under an electronic bracelet.

He has also been slapped with a three year ban but no provisional one ‘to preserve the freedom of voters who chose their mayor’, the judge has said.

In a hard-hitting judgement, magistrates also accused Le Pen of ‘undermining democracy’

Bardella was not among the accused in the trial and is also seen as a potential presidential contender should Marine Le Pen fall 

Eric Ciotti, the former president of centre-right republicans said: ‘The democratic destiny of our nation confiscated by an outrageous judicial cabal’

Matteo Salvini, Italy’s hard-right deputy prime minister likened Le Pen’s exclusion from political life to similar situations occurring in other countries such as Romania

Hungarian prime minister shared words of support to Le Pen on social media 

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. 

For over a decade, Le Pen has worked at making her party more mainstream, dulling its extremist edge to broaden its appeal to voters. 

After coming third in the 2012 presidential polls, Marine Le Pen made the run-off in 2017 and 2022 but was beaten by Emmanuel Macron on both occasions.

Yet 2027 could be a different opportunity, with Macron not allowed to stand again.

Le Pen’s life has been marked by the legacy of her openly racist father, a veteran of the long war in Algeria that ultimately led to the former French colony’s independence.

The politician in 2011 took over leadership of the National Front (FN) from her father Jean-Marie, who co-founded France’s main postwar far-right movement.

Distancing it from the legacy of her father, who openly made anti-Semitic and racist statements, she renamed the party the National Rally (RN) and embarked on a policy she dubbed ‘dediabolisation’ (‘de-demonisation’).

The work bore fruit in the snap legislative polls last summer, with the RN emerging as the largest single party in the National Assembly, although without the outright majority it had targeted.

That gave Le Pen unprecedented power over French politics, which she used by backing a no-confidence vote that toppled the government of prime minister Michel Barnier later in the year.

Critics accuse the party of still being inherently racist, taking too long to distance itself from Russia and resorting to corrupt tactics to ease its strained finances, allegations Le Pen denies.

But playing on people’s day-to-day concerns about immigration and the cost of living, Le Pen is now seen as having her best chance to win the French presidency in 2027 after three unsuccessful attempts.

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