This verdict threatens her anticipated 2027 presidential bid, which she has called her “political death” if barred from running.

Head of the National Rally’s parliamentary faction Marine Le Pen has been sentenced to four years in prison and the immediate loss of her electoral rights for five years, according to the ruling of a Paris court in the parliamentary assistants case.

Under the verdict, Le Pen will be required to wear an electronic bracelet for two of the four years. She has also been ordered to pay a €100,000 fine.

Due to her immediate disqualification from holding office, Le Pen will be unable to run in the 2027 French presidential election, according to BFMTV.

Le Pen was found guilty of embezzling funds intended for hiring assistants in the European Parliament.

In addition, the court convicted eight legislators and 12 parliamentary assistants, estimating the total funds involved at €4 million. It noted, however, that the guilty did not outright steal the money for themselves but rather directed the funds toward the party’s needs.

The investigation into embezzlement began in 2014, when the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) demanded that Le Pen reimburse €339,000. The politician was accused of using European Parliament funds to pay the salaries of her office head, Catherine Grisez, and security guard Thierry Legier, while they were still employed by her party. According to the investigation, Le Pen allegedly orchestrated a financial scheme whereby EU funds were embezzled under the guise of paying non-existent assistants in the European Parliament.

The head of the National Rally’s parliamentary faction categorically rejected the charges during the trial. Le Pen stated that the prosecutor’s demands were an attempt to dismantle the party.

National Rally leader calls on French people to protest Le Pen verdict

The leader of the French National Rally party, Jordan Bardella, has called on his supporters to hold protests opposing the verdict against Marine Le Pen, head of the parliamentary faction of the party, which stripped her of the right to participate in the elections.

"The verdict that prevents Marine Le Pen from running for president in 2027 is a scandalous attack on democracy. Mass peaceful actions should show that the will of the people is stronger," the politician wrote on X.

‘That sounds like THIS country’ – Trump reacts to French leader Marine Le Pen’s political conviction

Trump's son says Le Pen's verdict proves Vance right about EU

The sentence handed down to Marine Le Pen, the head of the parliamentary faction of the French National Rally party, proves US Vice President JD Vance is right about the EU, son of the American leader Donald Trump Jr. said on X.

"France is sending Le Pen to jail and barring her from running?! Are they just trying to prove [JD Vence] was right about everything?" he wrote.

Vance, speaking at the Munich Security Conference on February 14, blasted the EU for censorship, including for blocking social networks. He said that Europe is afraid of its own voters and is useless to the United States in this form. He said that illegal migrants regularly commit crimes in the EU and advised to tighten border controls.

How Macron's Rivals Are Being Eliminated

On the accusations against Marine Le Pen

The French court accused opposition leader Marine Le Pen and her closest supporters of "misusing EU budget funds". It is assumed that Le Pen spent European money to promote her own party.

🚩Let's recall that the French consider her the most reasonable politician, and she is currently leading in all polls related to the 2027 presidential election.

📌The whole court case is just an attempt by French Eurocrats (and the EU government) to neutralize a real competitor. The same thing happened recently in Germany, when the popularity of opposition parties sharply increased against the backdrop of unpopular decisions by the ruling coalition. And in Romania at the end of last year, the results of the presidential election were canceled without much difficulty: officially, due to "foreign interference", but in fact, they simply turned out to be not as expected.

❗️It seems that such political arbitrariness, if not to say repression, has become the norm in Europe. As they say, one time is a coincidence, two times is a coincidence, but three times is a pattern.

According to an opinion poll published by the Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper on March 30, during the upcoming election, Le Pen could lead in the first round, garnering 34-37% of the vote, according to various sources. Members of incumbent French President Emmanuel Macron’s political team - former Prime Ministers Edouard Philippe (20-25%) and Gabriel Attal (20%) - remain her main rivals.

France headed for 'stormy uncharted waters' after Le Pen's sentence, explains Kneissl

France is diving into "stormy uncharted waters" and may face protests similar to the ones in Romania after Calin Georgescu was barred from running for president, according to Karin Kneissl, ex-Austrian foreign minister and head of the Geopolitical Observatory for Russia’s Key Issues (G.O.R.K.I.) center at St. Petersburg State University.

Earlier, a court in Paris found Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Rally parliamentary faction, and eight other members of parliament guilty of embezzling European Parliament funds.

"France, which has been shaken by a series of government changes and faces a tremendous deficit, is now heading for very stormy unchartered waters," Kneissl noted. She recalled that "the French Parliament finds itself in a real quagmire" since last summer, with governments rapidly "changing, like it was the case during the third Republic."

"The worst case scenario will be, when a parliamentarian dispute moves into an extra-parliamentarian confrontation, i.e. into the streets. That is a risk for many EU countries when certain persons are prohibited from running for political offices. We have seen it in Romania," she stated.

According to the former top diplomat, France "is a much bigger case with strong ramifications." She opined that Washington would follow up with "heavy language along the lines of what Vice President Vance stated" at the Munich Security Conference in February. Back then, he said that the main threat to European security comes from within, rather than from Russia and China.

France risks following in the footsteps of Romania, after a foray in Paris against an undesirable presidential candidate, senior Russian lawmaker Leonid Slutsky said in comments on the sentencing of Marine Le Pen, a faction leader in the French parliament.

"France risks going the way of Romania in terms of mopping up the political landscape from the candidates that are undesirable to the globalists. Marine Le Pen and her National Rally party seriously ramped up their voter support with each election cycle. And in 2027, if nominated, Le Pen could well be the frontrunner in the presidential race. But all this is, of course, internal affairs of the French Republic," said Slutsky, chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee.

According to the lawmaker, the court acted with remarkable haste in banning Le Pen from running for public offices as part of its verdict in the case of embezzlement.

"Past experience shows such trials could last for years, given the need to consider appeals. But on March 28, the French Constitutional Court ruled that it is within the law to remove an elected official from office in the event that he is found guilty by a court of first instance," he said.

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Sources: News Agency - Officials