A judge has ruled Marine Le Pen is ineligible to run for office, along with eight MEPs from her National Rally party, after they were found guilty of misappropriation of EU funds.
The move is the latest attack on democracy in the EU, with judges increasingly deciding elections in Europe.
Le Pen has also been sentenced to four years in prison, with two years suspended.
Notably, the news comes right as Le Pen leads the polling for French presidential elections in 2027, as Remix News reported earlier today.
The court estimated that the total losses amounted to €2.9 million, as a result of “paying by the European Parliament people who actually worked for the far-right party.” Le Pen was found to be responsible for €1.8 million in damages herself. The judgment also concerns 12 assistants. The prosecutor’s office initially alleged that €7 million had been used in this way.
Investigators accused Le Pen of managing the illegal use of European subsidies between 2004 and 2016, when she served as an MEP. They stated that instead of working in Strasbourg, assistants were to work for Le Pen’s National Rally party in a domestic capacity.
“It was found that all these people actually worked for the party, that their deputy did not commission them any tasks,” said the judge. Assistants then “passed from one deputy to another.”
“It was not about combining the work of assistants, but about combining the budgets of MPs,” said the judge.
Le Pen said before the trial that the matter is entirely political and that her opponents wished for her “political death.”
RN president Jordan Bardella denounced the sentence on his X account, calling it “unjust” and amounting to an execution of French democracy.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has expressed support for Le Pen, posting “I am Marine” in French and tagging her account on X.
This is not the only such case either, with Romania banning the presidential frontrunner, Călin Georgescu, from running for president as well as arresting him.
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