Marine Le Pen appeal verdict: Will the far-right leader be barred from the French presidency?

The long-awaited verdict holds major implications for France's political future. After months of waiting, the Paris Court of Appeal is due to rule on Tuesday on whether France's far-right figurehead, Marine Le Pen, is eligible to run in the country's 2027 presidential elections.

Le Pen, the long-time face of the National Rally (RN) party, is appealing a 2025 case in which she was convicted of embezzling European Parliament funds to pay her party's employees. The conviction led to her being barred from running for public office for five years.

An acquittal is considered unlikely. But Le Pen might also see her penalty reduced, which could allow her to run for office. Or she could face a renewed conviction in line with the prosecution's demands – effectively quashing any hopes of running for the presidency.

Le Pen has already run for president three times, but her popularity has risen significantly since her last attempt in 2022. As the clear front-runner in the polls for both the first and second rounds of the upcoming elections, she is well aware that her political fate lies with the July 7 decision.

"If the prosecution's demands are upheld, I will be prevented from running," she told French channel TF1-LCI on February 3.

In a separate interview with RTL in November 2025, when the appeal was scheduled for September, Le Pen also expressed her commitment to the broader far-right vision of the RN, even at the cost of her candidacy.

"I am not going to let things drag on, because I am committed to seeing our ideas come to power. If I am barred from running, but the Court of Cassation (the highest court in the French judicial system) rules in my favour three or four months later, it will be too late to run a proper presidential campaign," she said.

Many legal experts believe Le Pen's guilt was proven during the appeals trial. The judges are likely to follow the prosecution's recommendations: a four-year prison sentence – with one year to be served in custody (eligible for electronic monitoring), a €100,000 fine and a five-year ban on holding public office. The verdict will not be immediately enforced.

Bardella takes the reins

Some observers believe the judges are under such intense pressure that they might refuse to hand down a ruling that would result in Le Pen being barred from standing for the Élysée.

"Against the current backdrop of the Lyhanna affair – where judges are under fire – and with radical right-wing factions campaigning for months on the alleged politicisation of the justice system, magistrates might feel uncomfortable taking responsibility for influencing who can or cannot run in 2027,” said Jean-Yves Camus, president of the Observatory on Political Radicalism at the Jean Jaurès Foundation and an expert on the far right.

The Lyhanna affair refers to the brutal murder of an 11-year-old girl, whose alleged killer had been named in four separate cases involving young girls in recent years. The case has become emblematic of the failures of the political and judicial systems.

“It's one thing to hand a mayor a five-year ban on holding office; it is quite another to prevent the presidential front-runner from competing," added Camus.

Several supporters of Le Pen and her party are clinging to the hope that the judges will permit Le Pen to run, or at least simply ban her from running for two years or less. "I am a believer ... so I believe in miracles," Le Pen joked during her appeal.

But there's no guarantee that they will do so, and many have now accepted that her 30-year-old protégé Jordan Bardella will be the National Rally's candidate. If he wins, he would be France's youngest leader since Napoleon Bonaparte.

The social media savvy MEP, who took over as president of the party in 2022, has even at times polled slightly ahead of Le Pen.

In recent weeks he has seemed particularly keen to take Le Pen's place.

In early April, he announced his relationship with Italian socialite and heiress, Princess Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, with a "candid" photo shoot in Corsica, for French weekly Paris-Match.

"Paris-Match is a launchpad for presidential hopefuls, and appearing on the cover remains a rite of passage for all presidential candidates," said Sciences Po lecturer and political communication specialist Philippe Moreau-Chevrolet, adding that the photo-spread marked an “undeniable” entry into the presidential campaign.

In early May, he spoke to the German press about the contentious issue of pensions, stating that the National Rally was “currently examining the question” of raising the statutory retirement age – a move that has confounded his party.

Le Pen has made a point of pledging to roll back President Emmanuel Macron's controversial pension reforms and keep the country's legal retirement age at 62, or even 60, with 40 to 42 years of contributions to the system.

A momentous ruling

In a bid to bolster his international stature, Bardella also travelled to Poland in mid-June, where he met several far-right allies, including conservative Eurosceptic President Karol Nawrocki as well as former prime minister Jarosław Kaczynski.

It was a choice of destination that once again set him apart from Le Pen, whose close ties with Russia – she notably received a loan from a Russian bank for her 2017 presidential campaign – are regularly criticised by her opponents.

“His position on pensions, international affairs, and his decision to visit Poland shows that he's breaking away from Le Pen's party line. He has clearly entered campaign mode. He didn't wait for the July 7 verdict and is already positioning himself as the RN's candidate for 2027,” said Camus.

Both the Le Pen and Bardella factions will unite for the cause, however, just as they did during the initial trial in February 2025. Should the court bar Le Pen from running, RN leaders are expected to rally around a familiar refrain, denouncing a “republic of judges” and calling for “political justice", much as they did after the initial trial.

"With all due respect, let me tell you: this is no easy task," said Rodolphe Bosselut – one of Le Pen's lawyers – on February 11, following the appeal hearing. He told the court that their verdict would be "momentous" given the looming presidential elections.

With mounting pressure from both the right and the left, the judges at the Paris Court of Appeal are well aware of the weight of their decision; the ruling will be pivotal for not just the 2027 presidential race but also France's long-term political future.

This story has been translated from the original in French.