Paris prosecutors urge court to uphold five-year public office ban on Marine Le Pen — with one key amendment

PARIS (CN) — France’s next presidential election could likely be determined by legal technicalities.

On Tuesday, Paris prosecutors delivered their recommendations concerning the embezzlement appeal of the extreme-right leader Marine Le Pen, whose political future will hinge on the verdict. The courtroom fell silent — even reporters stopped frantically typing — when prosecutor Thierry Ramonatxo arrived at her case.

Le Pen, he said, “who, following in her father [Jean-Marie Le Pen]’s footsteps, orchestrated a system that allowed her to embezzle 1.4 million euros for the benefit of the [National Rally] party … only offered a superficial apology.”

Ramonatxo proceeded to request a four-year prison sentence — three suspended and one to be served with an electronic monitoring bracelet — a roughly $118,000 fine, and a five-year ban on holding public office.

This roughly mirrors the original verdict, with one key difference: In March 2025, judges sentenced Le Pen to five years of political ineligibility with “provisional enforcement,” meaning it would take immediate effect and render her ineligible for a presidential run in 2027.

Now, the prosecution is requesting the appeals court not to apply this measure.

“The objective of efficiency can be achieved without resorting to provisional enforcement,” Ramonatxo said, eliciting gasps throughout the audience.

This paves the way to a lot of “what if” scenarios.

If the court applies the prosecution’s recommendations when it delivers a verdict this summer, Le Pen would likely be able to run in France’s 2027 presidential elections, and the polls are showing that she’d be a frontrunner. This is because she would likely appeal this decision to France’s highest court — the Cour de Cassation — so the sentence would not be applied until they render a decision.

Given the number of cases the Cour de Cassation examines, this could take years, which would give her enough time to run. However, considering the political stakes attached to this appeal, there are reports that the court could deliver a verdict ahead of the election.

In the case that she runs and wins the presidency, her position could not be revoked, Arnaud Mercier, a political scientist and professor in communication sciences at the Panthéon-Assas University Paris II, explained.

“It changes everything, it changes absolutely everything,” Mercier said.

In France, sitting presidents are largely immune from prosecution, with a few very technical exceptions. If Le Pen goes on to win the presidency and the Cour de Cassation has not yet issued a verdict, she will be able to serve out her five-year term in office.

“This is an unprecedented situation in French political life,” Gilbert Casasus, a prominent political scientist, explained after the hearing. “A president of the Republic cannot go to prison while in office, but if a sentence is handed down after their presidential term, then they can go to prison.”

But Le Pen remained poker-faced during a brief address to reporters when she was leaving the courtroom on Tuesday night.

“Clearly, the public prosecutor’s office is following the same line as the prosecutor’s office in the first instance,” she said, and urged people to remember that these were simply recommendations and do not constitute anything final.

In March 2025, Le Pen was convicted of embezzling millions in European Union funds alongside 23 members of her National Rally party, known as the RN. Investigators said the party’s lawmakers received $24,500 monthly paychecks meant for parliamentary assistants in Brussels.

Throughout the appeal, she maintained that she wasn’t aware this scheme was taking place. It had been implemented by her father, the late Jean-Marie Le Pen, who used to run the party, which was previously known as the National Front.

It’s unlikely that she will be fully acquitted. So even if she is permitted to run in the 2027 presidential elections, a whole other host of questions will arise — how will Le Pen pull off a campaign with a fresh embezzlement conviction under her belt?

“It’s a legal labyrinth. … Can someone who is sentenced to a prison term, even a suspended sentence, but with a definite prison sentence, run for president?” Casasus said. “The question will certainly be part of the election campaign in that case.”

The final decision is in the hands of the Paris Appeals Court judges, who are expected to issue a verdict in the early summer.

“This is a difficult decision because if you judge according to the law, you can think, ‘OK, she must be condemned and ineligible for a long period,’” Maxime Lefebvre, a diplomat and professor of international relations at the ESCP business school, explained. “But they could say, ‘OK, we condemn her, but we don’t want to interfere with the election.’”

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