The Paris Court of Appeal handed down its highly anticipated decision on Tuesday in the case of the Rassemblement National's parliamentary assistants. Marine Le Pen was sentenced to three years in prison, including one year to be served under electronic monitoring, and to 45 months of ineligibility, of which 30 are suspended. The presiding judge, Michèle Agi, described the offenses as particularly serious, both in terms of the amounts embezzled and the duration of the system in question, which spanned from 2004 to 2016.

A verdict that reshuffles the cards

This verdict temporarily closes, at least for now, a judicial saga that has weighed on the political future of the RN leader for over a year. In the first instance, in March 2025, the Paris Correctional Court had sentenced her to five years of ineligibility and four years in prison, two of which were suspended, a sentence subject to immediate enforcement that immediately sparked controversy by theoretically preventing her from running in the 2027 presidential election. The Court of Appeal has changed the situation: the 15 months of firm ineligibility are considered to have already been served since the first judgment, which would, in theory, leave the door open for a candidacy.

The electronic tag obstacle

The electronic tag remains an obstacle. Marine Le Pen had warned in a televised interview a few days before the verdict that she would not be able to campaign under such conditions, explaining that a presidential candidate must be able to move freely without depending on a magistrate's authorization. On the evening of her conviction, she announced on TF1's 8 p.m. news that she was appealing to the Court of Cassation, a move that, according to her, suspends the execution of the sentences handed down on appeal. "I believe that two jurisdictions can make a mistake," she stated, asserting her intention to exhaust all avenues of appeal to defend her innocence in this case.

The Public Prosecutor's Office can also appeal

The Prosecutor General at the Paris Court of Appeal, Marie-Suzanne Le Quéau, indicated that she would make her own decision regarding an appeal in the coming days, with the legal deadline for doing so running until July 20. Politically, this sequence is high-risk for the RN. After a meeting of its executives at its new headquarters on rue Cortambert in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, Marine Le Pen was scheduled to meet Jordan Bardella the next day at the La Flèche market in Sarthe, before a meeting of the party's leading bodies that afternoon. This agenda reflects the party's determination to display unity and continuity, regardless of the judicial outcome.

Twenty-four other defendants

The case remains sensitive also because it involves twenty-four other defendants: former MEPs, parliamentary assistants, and party accountants, all prosecuted for participating in a system of using European Parliament funds to finance jobs that actually benefited the party in France. During the appeal trial, Marine Le Pen had denied the existence of an organized system of embezzlement, asserting that the RN had acted in good faith. Some party supporters had, during the first trial, gone so far as to send death threats to the magistrates, a climate that the RN president had denounced as a "witch hunt".

An already contested electoral competition

In terms of polls, the situation remains fluid. Several opinion surveys suggest that Édouard Philippe, another declared presidential candidate and former Prime Minister under Emmanuel Macron, could win against the far-right in a hypothetical second round. This judicial uncertainty is therefore added to an already contested electoral competition ten months before the deadline.

Editorial opinion

The Court of Appeal settles a legal point that has remained unclear since March 2025: the calculation of ineligibility penalties already served. The legal reasoning is coherent, but the political aspect of the case – Marine Le Pen's effective ability to conduct a presidential campaign under judicial supervision – remains entirely open. The appeal to the Court of Cassation effectively places the 2027 presidential election back at the center of the game, illustrating a recurring tension in democracy: the articulation between judicial time, which is generally long, and electoral time, which is not.