(31 Mar 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Paris, France – 31 March 2025
1. Various of National Rally leader Marine Le Pen arriving at court
2. Various of Le Pen leaving court after verdict
STORYLINE:
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen strode out of a French court as the chief judge on Monday barred her from seeking public office after she was found guilty of embezzling EU funds.
The judge hasn’t yet said how long Le Pen will be ineligible for running for public office.
Le Pen didn’t wait around to find out. In a moment of high drama, she got up and left, walking out of the court and then the courthouse before she was driven away.
The verdict could shake up French politics and derail Le Pen’s career.
Le Pen and 24 other officials from her National Rally were found guilty of having used money intended for European Union parliamentary aides to pay staff who worked for the party between 2004 and 2016, in violation of the 27-nation bloc’s regulations. Le Pen and her co-defendants denied wrongdoing.
The biggest concern for Le Pen is that the court may declare her ineligible to run for office “with immediate effect" — even if she appeals. That could prevent her from running for president in 2027. She has described such a scenario as a “political death.”
The Constitutional Council ruled Friday, in a separate case, that imposing the punishment immediately was constitutional.
Le Pen, who was in court, could face up to 10 years in prison — a verdict she could appeal. That would lead to another trial.
Le Pen, 56, was runner-up to President Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections, and her party’s electoral support has grown in recent years.
During the nine-week trial that took place in late 2024, she argued that ineligibility “would have the effect of depriving me of being a presidential candidate" and disenfranchise her supporters.
“There are 11 million people who voted for the movement I represent. So tomorrow, potentially, millions and millions of French people would see themselves deprived of their candidate in the election,” she told the panel of three judges.
If Le Pen cannot run in 2027, her seeming natural successor would be Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s 29-year-old protégé who succeeded her at the helm of the party in 2021.
Le Pen denied accusations she was at the head of “a system” meant to siphon off EU parliament money to benefit her party, which she led from 2011 to 2021.
She argued instead that it was acceptable to adapt the work of the aides paid by the European Parliament to the needs of the lawmakers, including some highly political work related to the party, which was called the National Front at the time.
While testifying, Le Pen told the court: “I absolutely don’t feel I have committed the slightest irregularity, the slightest illegal move.”
Hearings showed that some EU money was used to pay for Le Pen’s bodyguard — who was once her father’s bodyguard — as well as her personal assistant.
Prosecutors are requesting a two-year prison sentence and a five-year period of ineligibility.
Le Pen said she felt they were “only interested” in preventing her from running for president.
AP Video by Alex Turnbull, Nicolas Garriga and Yesica Brumec and production by Masha Macpherson and Jeff Schaeffer
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