France's Le Pen convicted of graft, barred from running for president in 2027

By Elizabeth Pineau and Juliette Jabkhiro

PARIS (Reuters) -French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was banned from running for public office for five years after being convicted on Monday of embezzlement, a political watershed that ruled her out of the 2027 presidential race unless she can win an appeal.

The French court's ruling was a catastrophic setback for Le Pen, the National Rally (RN) party chief who has long been one of the most prominent figures in the European far right and who has been the front-runner in opinion polls for the 2027 contest.

The judge who convicted Le Pen of misappropriating European Union funds also gave her a four-year prison sentence - two years of which are suspended and two years to be served under home detention. She received a 100,000-euro ($108,200) fine.

Le Pen, 56, will appeal, her lawyer said, and neither the prison sentence nor the fine will be applied until her appeals are exhausted. But the five-year ban from running for office starts immediately, via a so-called "provisional execution" measure requested by prosecutors.

Le Pen's right-hand man, RN president Jordan Bardella, said: "Today it is not only Marine Le Pen who was unjustly convicted: It was French democracy that was killed".

But centrist lawmaker Sacha Houlie said on X: "At what point do we think that a judge will not apply the law? Is society so sick that it is offended by what is nothing more and nothing less than the rule of law?"

Le Pen has run three times for president and has said 2027 will be her final run for top office. Her hopes now lie on overturning Monday's ruling at appeal before the election. Appeals in France can take months or even years.

Le Pen had before Monday's events had described prosecutors as seeking her "political death". She left the courtroom in Paris before judge Benedicte de Perthuis read out her sentence, and without any immediate comment. She was expected to appear in an interview with TF1 TV at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT).

Allies in France and far-right leaders from European countries including Italy, Spain and the Netherlands joined in condemning the ruling as judicial overreach.

Anger in Le Pen's party could push the hung parliament into deeper disarray.

A conviction would have "no influence on our ability to defend the French people, and to censure the government (in a vote of no confidence) if necessary," Le Pen said on X last week.

Le Pen presides over the single biggest party in the National Assembly, and will retain her parliamentary seat until her term ends. That will be in 2029 unless snap parliamentary elections are called before then.

'FULL STEAM AHEAD'

There have been increasing instances of immediate political bans in France since the passage of toughened anti-corruption laws in 2016, but Le Pen supporters accused judges of policing politics.

"We will not be intimidated, we will not stop: full steam ahead my friend!" Matteo Salvini, Italy's deputy prime minister and head of the far-right League, told Le Pen in a statement.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said: "Je suis Marine!"

Bardella looks set to become the RN's de facto candidate for the 2027 election.

Some opponents applauded the ruling, saying the independence of the judiciary must be respected. Others, such as Jean-Luc Melenchon, of the hard-left France Unbowed, said they would rather defeat Le Pen at the ballot box.

Le Pen, the RN and two dozen party figures were found guilty of diverting more than 4 million euros ($4.33 million) of European Parliament funds. The party was ordered to pay a 2 million euro fine, with half the amount suspended.

The defendants were not accused of pocketing the money, but of using EU funds to the benefit of their party. They had said the money was used legitimately and that the allegations had defined too narrowly what a parliamentary assistant does. 

De Perthuis said Le Pen had been "at the heart" of the scheme. The judge said investigations "showed that these were not administrative errors ... but embezzlement within the framework of a system put in place to reduce the party's costs".

Le Pen has long sought to soften her image, taking her party towards the political mainstream and trying to appear as a leader-in-waiting rather than a radical opponent of the establishment.

Arnaud Benedetti, a political analyst who has written a book on the RN, said the five-year ban on Le Pen was a key moment in French politics.

"This is a seismic political event," he said. "Inevitably, it's going to reshuffle the pack, particularly on the right."

Bardella has helped expand the RN's appeal among younger voters, but experts said it was unclear whether he has the experience to win over the broader electorate the RN needs to secure victory in 2027. 

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(Writing by Gabriel Stargardter and Ingrid MelanderEditing by Richard Lough, Frances Kerry and Timothy Heritage)