Appeals Court Upholds Le Pen Conviction but Reduces Ineligibility, Making Her Eligible for 2027 Election

A French appeals court on July 7, 2026, upheld Marine Le Pen's 2025 embezzlement conviction while reducing her period of ineligibility to run for president from five years to 45 months. The Paris Court of Appeal ordered 30 months of the ineligibility suspended and 15 months served, a term Le Pen has already completed, making her eligible for the April 2027 election.

The court also reinstated a one-year house-arrest sentence to be served with an electronic tag and ordered Le Pen to pay more than $100,000 in fines.

Her overall prison term was cut from four years to three years, with two years suspended. The house-arrest and fine portions of the original sentence had been suspended during the appeals process. Le Pen stated last week that campaigning under house arrest with an electronic tag was not possible.

"If it is a matter of allowing me to run as a candidate while effectively preventing me from campaigning with complete freedom, you will surely understand that that is not possible," she said. "When you are a presidential candidate, you must be completely free to move about," she added, noting she could not depend on a magistrate to authorize rallies or market visits.

Le Pen may request that the electronic-tag requirement be reduced to six months.

Le Pen and eight current or former members of her National Rally party, formerly the National Front, had faced up to 10 years in prison. The party was convicted in 2025 of embezzling European Union funds to pay staff members between 2004 and 2016. A dozen parliamentary aides also received guilty verdicts.

Le Pen left the Paris Court of Appeal after the ruling. She is expected to speak at 8 p.m. local time on Tuesday. Polling by Ipsos BVA shows Le Pen and party president Jordan Bardella each garnering 31-36 percent support ahead of the first round of the 2027 election.