PARIS — A Paris appeals court upheld Marine Le Pen's conviction for misusing European Parliament funds on July 7, 2026. The court sentenced her to a three-year jail term, with two years suspended, and ordered her to wear an electronic ankle tag for one year.

The ruling declared Ms. Le Pen ineligible to hold public office for 45 months, with 30 of those months suspended. Despite these penalties, she is eligible to stand in the April 2027 French presidential election under the terms of the July 7, 2026, ruling.

Ms. Le Pen was convicted of embezzlement in March 2025. That conviction found her guilty of embezzling 1.4 million euros in European Parliament money by hiring two high-ranking members of her party as parliamentary assistants with funds intended for EU parliamentary assistants between 2004 and 2016. The March 2025 verdict had banned Ms. Le Pen from holding public office for five years with immediate effect. The National Rally party was fined 200,000 euros in that verdict, with half of that amount suspended.

During her appeal, Marine Le Pen stated that her party had "absolutely no sense of doing anything wrong whatsoever." In an interview last week, she commented on the possibility of a presidential bid, saying, "If I can run, I will — as long as I can campaign." She added, "If I'm allowed to be a candidate but am effectively prevented from campaigning freely, then you understand that wouldn't be possible."

Jordan Bardella, President of the National Rally, posted on X on July 6, 2026, that "Nothing can justify Marine Le Pen being excluded from the choice of the French people and prevented from presenting herself before them." Ms. Le Pen is scheduled to give a prime-time television interview on TF1 at 8 p.m. on July 7, 2026.

Ms. Le Pen stepped down as National Rally president in 2021, the same year Jordan Bardella became president of the party. Marine Le Pen came second to Emmanuel Macron in both the 2017 and 2022 French presidential elections.