The Paris Court on Monday found Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally (RN) party in the French parliament, guilty of embezzling public funds by paying ghost European parliamentary assistants.
The ruling immediately bans her from running for public office for five years.
Le Pen stormed out of the courtroom even before hearing her sentencing.
Speaking to the French public television channel TF1 on Monday evening, she assured that she would "appeal as quickly as possible" and would not retire from political life even if barred from running for the presidency.
Le Pen was expected to make her fourth attempt to be the first female president of the French Republic in 2027.
Yet the ineligibility ruling has dashed her hopes of clinching a victory that many had already anticipated.
WHAT IS LE PEN CONVICTED OF?
The French prosecution accused Le Pen, along with eight other RN members, of embezzling public funds during their mandate as members of the European Parliament between 2004 and 2017.
During Monday's trial, the Court said that Le Pen and her colleagues had the parliament pay salaries to individuals who were working, partially or entirely, for the French far-right wing party instead of the parliament itself.
The Court said the total embezzled funds was 2.9 million euros (3.1 million U.S. dollars), adding that Le Pen alone has embezzled some 474,000 euros.
The Court sentenced Le Pen to four years in prison -- two years suspended and the remaining two to be served with an electronic bracelet at home.
She was also fined 100,000 euros.The five-year public office ban cannot be suspended by appeal, although she can continue to serve in parliament until her term ends."
For thirty years, I've been fighting for you. For thirty years, I've been fighting against injustice. I will continue to do so, and I will do so until the end," Le Pen said on her X account on Monday night.
A POLITICAL OPPONENT'S SETUP?
Among the nine RN members convicted on Monday, Le Pen received the most severe sentence given her role "at the center" of a system that embezzled European Union public funds, the judge said.In her interview with TF1 on Monday evening, Le Pen noted that the trial launched against her and her party was a plot by her political opponents.
"There is no personal enrichment, there is no corruption, there is none of that," she said, calling the "embezzlement" verdict an "administrative disagreement" with the European Parliament.
Le Pen was President Emmanuel Macron's main political rival in the past two elections. In 2022, Macron defeated her with 58.5 percent of the vote.
In 2017, he won against her in a runoff with 66.10 percent. Le Pen had declared that the 2027 presidential race would be her fourth and final attempt at the French presidency.
If Le Pen's appeal fails to clear her before the 2027 presidential election, she would have no choice but to bet the RN's future on rising star Jordan Bardella, the current RN party president.According to Le Monde, Bardella has indeed driven up the popularity of the RN.
In 2024, the RN broke its records in the European Parliament elections with 31.37 per cent of the votes and gained an unprecedented number of seats in the French National Assembly."
Yet behind the shining facade, Bardella has, so far, failed to transform the RN into a 'party of government,'" Le Monde said.
Bardella, a protege of Le Pen, called on Le Pen supporters to carry out a "peaceful" mobilization on Monday afternoon. He also launched a petition in support of Le Pen, calling her ineligibility ruling a "democratic scandal."
DOES LE PEN HAVE SUPPORT?
Right-wing European leaders have voiced support for Le Pen following the court decision.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban posted "I am Marine!" on his X account, while Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said that Le Pen's conviction was "a declaration of war by Brussels."Dutch politician Geert Wilders said via X that he was "shocked" by the "incredible tough verdict" against Le Pen.
"I support and believe in her for the full 100 percent, and I trust she will win the appeal and become President of France," he wrote.
Across the Atlantic, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said Monday that the "exclusion of people from the political process is particularly concerning" when a reporter asked about Le Pen.
"We have got to do more as the West than just talk about democratic values. We must live them," she said.
Within France, reactions from different political camps vary. According to Le Figaro, Prime Minister Francois Bayrou, Macron's centrist ally, said that he felt "troubled" by the ineligibility ruling.
Jean-Luc Melenchon, who leads the hard-left party La France Insoumise (LFI), has yet to comment.
But in mid-March, he told reporters that an immediate ineligibility ruling, without waiting for the appeal judgment, "would not be fair."
Speaking on his X account, LFI national coordinator Manuel Bompard said Monday that the party "acknowledges the court's ruling decision, even if we refuse on principle to accept that it should be impossible for anyone to appeal."
"La France Insoumise has never had the option of using a court to get rid of the National Rally. We are fighting it at polling stations and in the streets," he said.
Apart from the LFI, left-wing parties generally support the court's ruling.
Former President Francois Hollande, now a deputy for the Socialist Party, said that respect for judicial independence must be guaranteed.
"The French can be paradoxical.They think that justice is too lax towards the powerful. And the day they are convicted, they think it's an injustice. But justice must be done," he told BFMTV.
