The leader of France‘s far-right party called for a peaceful ‘mobilisation’, after the movement’s figurehead Marine Le Pen was banned from running for office following an embezzlement conviction.
Le Pen’s conviction and sentence are ‘a democratic scandal,’ Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s protege and leader of her RN party, wrote in a post on X social media platform.
‘With our popular and peaceful mobilisation, let’s show them that the will of the people is stronger.’
Le Pen, the 56-year-old firebrand, was today handed a four-year sentence, an £84,000 fine and a ban from France’s 2027 presidential election, after she was found guilty of embezzlement of public funds by a French court.
She claimed in an interview with French media that she was ‘innocent’, insisting she was not ‘demoralised’ by the ruling and adding that she was ‘scandalised’ by the court.
‘I feel indignant. Let’s be clear, I am eliminated but in reality it’s millions of French people whose voices have been eliminated’, she said, claiming that the court had made a ‘political decision.’
The hard-right leader will appeal her conviction, her lawyer said on Monday, adding that she was in a ‘fighting mood’.
Laurent Jacobelli, a RN lawmaker and party spokesman, earlier claimed the conviction was a ‘blow to democracy’.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, member of parliament from the Rassemblement National leaves the courthouse on the day of the verdict of her trial in Paris, France, March 31, 2025
The leader of France’s National Rally (RN) Jordan Bardella, attends the International Conference on Combating Antisemitism in Jerusalem, Israel, Thursday, March 27, 202
This court sketch created on March 31, 2025, shows President of the French far-right Rassemblement National (RN) parliamentary group, Marine Le Pen, attending the verdict and sentencing in her and co-defendant’s trial on charges of embezzlement of European public funds, at the Tribunal de Paris courthouse in Paris, on March 31, 2025
She could technically still run if she is successful in her appeal before the election but experts have warned the process will likely take years.
Her four-year jail sentence will be suspended for two years with the remaining time spent fitted with an electronic bracelet.
Le Pen and 24 other officials from the National Rally were accused 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.
Following the sentencing, however, several hard-right supporters have already flocked to social media to defend her.
Bardella, took to X to share a post reading: ‘Today it is not only Marine Le Pen who was unjustly condemned: It was French democracy that was killed.’
Bardella, 29, was not among the accused in the trial and is also seen as a potential presidential contender should Marine Le Pen fall.
Elon Musk wrote on X: ‘When the radical left can’t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents. This is their standard playbook throughout the world.’
Leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage said Le Pen has been ‘cancelled’ on what he deemed ‘very trumped-up charges’.
He described the barring of the National Rally leader from public office as a ‘trend’, calling her ‘a candidate that would, without doubt, have won the next French presidential election’.
The Reform leader suggested that Eurosceptic parties have been unfairly targeted with legal action.
‘I don’t see how it could be possible the only people that have ever been in breach of EU funding rules are Eurosceptics. Just not possible,’ he said.
Also taking a public stand against Le Pen’s sentence, Eric Ciotti, the former president of centre-right republicans said: ‘The democratic destiny of our nation confiscated by an outrageous judicial cabal.
‘The favoured candidate in the presidential election prevented from running. This is not a simple dysfunction. It is a system to capture power that systematically throws aside any candidate that is too far on the right and who has a chance of winning.’
But Eric Zimmour, president of the far-right Reconquest Party slammed the sentence, saying: ‘It is not for judges to decide who the people must vote for. Whatever our disagreements, Marine Le Pen is legitimate to present herself for the vote.’
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s hard-right deputy prime minister likened Le Pen’s exclusion from political life to similar situations occurring in other countries such as Romania
Eric Ciotti, the former president of centre-right republicans said: ‘The democratic destiny of our nation confiscated by an outrageous judicial cabal’
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage described the barring of the National Rally leader from public office as a ‘trend’
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s hard-right deputy prime minister shared a similar message, stating: ‘People who are afraid of the judgment of the voters are often reassured by the judgment of the courts.
‘In Paris they have condemned Marine Le Pen and would like to exclude her from political life – an ugly film that we are also seeing in other countries such as Romania.
‘The ruling against Marine Le Pen is a declaration of war by Brussels, at a time when the warlike impulses of Von der Leyen and Macron are frightening. We will not be intimidated, we will not stop: full steam ahead my friend!’
The Kremlin on Monday also blasted the French court’s ruling to bar Le Pen from running for office over a fake jobs scheme.
During the reading of the verdict, which Le Pen stormed out of before hearing the duration of her ban, Judge Perthuis said Le Pen’s actions amounted to a ‘serious and lasting attack on the rules of democratic life in Europe, but especially in France.’
In a hard-hitting judgement, magistrates also accused Le Pen of ‘undermining democracy’.
They wrote: ‘Marine Le Pen has been at the heart of this illegal system since 2009. The events have seriously and lastingly undermined the rules of democracy. This is an enrichment of the party, a circumvention of the rules governing political party financing, and therefore a circumvention of democracy.’
It comes as the presidential hopeful and dozens of other party officials were found guilty of misappropriating around £397,000, in particular for the contracts of her bodyguard, Thierry Légier, and her former parliamentary attaché and ex-sister-in-law, Catherine Griset.
Griset was handled a one-year suspended prison sentence and a two-year electoral ban.
Louis Aliot, former number two of the National Rally, has been sentenced to 18 months in jail, with ten months suspended. The remainder will be under an electronic bracelet.
He has also been slapped with a three year ban but no provisional one ‘to preserve the freedom of voters who chose their mayor’, the judge has said.
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.
Bardella was not among the accused in the trial and is also seen as a potential presidential contender should Marine Le Pen fall
The presidential hopeful stormed out of the courtroom before hearing the details of her ban
Le Pen, 56, was handed a five-year ban from holding public office after being convicted of embezzlement by a court in France today
For over a decade, Le Pen has worked at making her party more mainstream, dulling its extremist edge to broaden its appeal to voters.
After coming third in the 2012 presidential polls, Marine Le Pen made the run-off in 2017 and 2022 but was beaten by Emmanuel Macron on both occasions.
Yet 2027 could be a different opportunity, with Macron not allowed to stand again.
Le Pen’s life has been marked by the legacy of her openly racist father, a veteran of the long war in Algeria that ultimately led to the former French colony’s independence.
The politician in 2011 took over leadership of the National Front (FN) from her father Jean-Marie, who co-founded France’s main postwar far-right movement.
Distancing it from the legacy of her father, who openly made anti-Semitic and racist statements, she renamed the party the National Rally (RN) and embarked on a policy she dubbed ‘dediabolisation’ (‘de-demonisation’).
The work bore fruit in the snap legislative polls last summer, with the RN emerging as the largest single party in the National Assembly, although without the outright majority it had targeted.
That gave Le Pen unprecedented power over French politics, which she used by backing a no-confidence vote that toppled the government of prime minister Michel Barnier later in the year.
Critics accuse the party of still being inherently racist, taking too long to distance itself from Russia and resorting to corrupt tactics to ease its strained finances, allegations Le Pen denies.
But playing on people’s day-to-day concerns about immigration and the cost of living, Le Pen is now seen as having her best chance to win the French presidency in 2027 after three unsuccessful attempts.
