The face of France‘s far-right, Marine Le Pen, has said in a television interview that she intends to run for the presidency for her National Rally (RN) party next year.
This follows an appeals court upholding her graft conviction but reudcing a ban from holding public office, making it possible for her to run while wearing an electronic monitoring device on her ankle. She also reiterated her plan to appeal again to France’s top court, the Court of Cassation in Paris, saying she considered herself “innocent.”
“I want to pursue all legal avenues to defend my innocence in this case. I am a candidate tonight,” Le Pen told the TF1 TV channel in a prime time interview.
Le Pen had previously said she would not run if sentenced to legal monitoring, and had left the courtroom earlier without speaking to journalists.
“I had stated that I would not campaign while wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet,” she told TF1. “But since I have the option to file an appeal with the Court of Cassation … and that appeal suspends the effects of the ruling, I will campaign without an electronic monitoring bracelet,” Le Pen said.
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If the 57-year-old daughter of former French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen does run, it would be her fourth shot at the presidency, after coming second to Emmanuel Macron in 2017 and 2022 and failing to make the runoff vote in 2012.
The Court of Cassation had indicated earlier that evening to expect a decision on whether it would hear Le Pen’s appeal no earlier than next week.
As to her protege Jordan Bardella, seen as her stand-in in the event that she could not or would not run, Le Pen said they would form a “partnership consisting of a reliable prime minister and president.”
What happened in court on Tuesday?
In the long-awaited verdict, the appeals judge upheld her 2025 graft conviction, but lessened her sentence.
Le Pen, 57, had been sentenced to a five-year ban from public office last year by a lower court, as well as four years in prison over a fake jobs scam when she was a member of the European Parliament
Per Tuesday’s ruling, her ban on standing in an election has been shortened to 15 months, and her prison term reduced to three years — two suspended and one with an electronic monitor.
That means she could still enter the race for office, but only with an ankle tag.
DW’s Paris correspondent Lisa Louis said the long queue in front of the courthouse, the old Palais de Justice in central Paris, was an indication of how closely watched the verdict was set to be — in France and abroad.
“The first national and international journalists got here at 5 a.m.,” she said. “I arrived two hours later — but was still one of the happy few to get a seat in the courtroom.”
What was Le Pen convicted of?
As a member of what was then called the National Front, Le Pen was a member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2017.
Alongside some two dozen former far-right staffers, she was found guilty of misappropriating EU funds to pay alleged staffers for jobs that did not really exist.
Prosecutors said she “professionalized” a type of graft first introduced by her father, the late far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, to siphon EU funds.
Le Pen, the party, and 10 others appealed their verdicts, with her fellow RN chief Bardella calling the trials “politically motivated.” She has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
Edited by: Zac Crellin, Natalie Muller
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