Marine Le Pen was handed a three-year prison sentence, two years of it suspended, a €100,000 fine and a reduced period of ineligibility over the misuse of European Parliament funds. The ruling may leave her legally able to contest the 2027 presidential election, although she has previously said she would not campaign while wearing an electronic tag.

Marine Le Pen’s political future remained uncertain on Tuesday after the Paris Court of Appeal upheld her conviction for embezzling public funds, but reduced the penalty that had threatened to remove her from France’s 2027 presidential race.

The leader of National Rally was sentenced to three years in prison, two of them suspended, and fined €100,000. The remaining year is to be served outside prison under electronic monitoring, a condition that could severely complicate any presidential campaign.

The court also handed Le Pen a 45-month ban from holding public office, 30 months of which were suspended. That marks a significant reduction from the five-year ban imposed by a lower court in March 2025, which had taken immediate effect and appeared likely to block her from standing in the next presidential election.

The case centres on the use of European Parliament funds between 2004 and 2016, when Le Pen and other figures from the party, then known as the National Front, were accused of using money intended for parliamentary assistants to pay staff working for the party in France.

Le Pen has consistently denied wrongdoing. During the appeal, her defence argued that the rules governing parliamentary assistants had been unclear and that she had not intended to commit an offence. Prosecutors, on their side, described the arrangement as an organised system that allowed party work to be funded with European public money.

The ruling is a major moment for French politics. Le Pen, 57, has run for president three times and had been widely expected to make a fourth attempt in 2027, when President Emmanuel Macron is constitutionally barred from seeking another consecutive term. Her party has spent years trying to move from the margins of French politics into the mainstream, rebranding itself from the National Front to the National Rally and presenting itself as the principal opposition force.

The judgment also places new pressure on Jordan Bardella, the 30-year-old National Rally president and Le Pen’s political protégé. If Le Pen is unable or unwilling to campaign under electronic monitoring, Bardella is widely seen as the party figure most likely to replace her as its presidential candidate.

Le Pen has previously said she would not run for the presidency while wearing an electronic tag, arguing that such a restriction would make a national campaign impossible in practice, even if the law allowed her to stand.

She may still appeal to France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation. But with the 2027 presidential race already taking shape, the decision leaves an uncomfortable choice: rally behind Le Pen despite the legal restrictions, or accelerate a generational handover to Bardella.