French court allows Marine Le Pen for Presidential run, lifts election ban

Marine Le Pen’s presidential bid revived as French Court lifts election ban.

The court eases election ban for French lawyer and politician, who served as the president of the far-right National Rally (RN) party and had a long-standing ambition to run for the French presidency in 2027.

A French appeal court on Tuesday upheld Marine Le Pen's conviction for misusing EU funds but shortened her ban on running for public office.

However, the court also sentenced Le Pen to a three-year jail term: two suspended and one with an electronic ankle tag which could make a presidential campaign politically and logistically difficult.

She is due to give a prime-time TV interview on TF1 in which she may make an announcement on her political future.

Le Pen previously said she would be reluctant to wage a presidential campaign while serving a sentence under electronic monitoring, arguing that it would interfere with campaigning and undermine her credibility.

As she left the courtroom, Le Pen was smiling but did not say a word. She then went to the headquarters of her party, the anti-immigrant National Rally (RN), to discuss what to do next.

The ruling also opens a path for her protégé, 30-year-old Jordan Bardella, as the most likely presidential candidate from the anti-immigrant RN if Le Pen ultimately decides not to run.

She was found guilty of being part of a scheme to misappropriate EU funds meant to finance parliamentary assistants, using the money instead to pay RN employees.

Le Pen's presidential ambitions had been on hold since March 2025, when she received a five-year ban from public office and a four-year prison sentence after being convicted of embezzling more than 4 million euros from the European Parliament.