Marine Le Pen has been found "guilty" and disqualified from public office, which could abruptly halt her presidential ambitions for 2027, in a sentence that threatens to create a political earthquake in France. The leader of the National Rally (RN) has been accused along with eight other party members of a scheme to divert funds from European parliamentarians to the coffers of the National Front, the predecessor of the RN.
Le Pen had criticized the legal battle in advance as an attempt to condemn her to "political death." The prosecutor had requested five years in prison and political disqualification for her, with a "provisional execution" of the sentence without waiting for the appeal.
Visibly angered, Le Pen abruptly left the courtroom without even waiting for the full reading of the sentence.
The verdict has hit the French political class like an earthquake. RN deputies threatened to boycott the National Assembly and take parliamentary actions that could further jeopardize the already fragile situation of Prime Minister François Bayrou. RN President and Le Pen's protege, Jordan Bardella, emerges as a possible natural successor amid the political storm.
Le Pen arrived at the Clichy courts shortly before ten in the morning and headed directly to room 2.01, the same one where former President Nicolas Sarkozy was tried for alleged Libyan financing of his 2007 election campaign. The sentence had the French political class and society on edge.
Alongside Le Pen, 24 other party members appeared in court. Among them, her former partner and mayor of Perpignan, Louis Aliot, whose political future could also be seriously compromised.
The trial has barely dented Le Pen's popularity, as she leads by a wide margin over her potential rivals for the presidential elections. The National Rally leader tops the latest Le Journal de Dimanche poll with 37% of preferences, compared to 25% for Édouard Philippe and 21% for Gabriel Attal, two other potential candidates.
Patrick Maisonneuve, lawyer for the European Parliament, warned that what was at stake was the "embezzlement of European taxpayers' money." The EU estimates that the "damage" caused could amount to 2.9 million euros over a decade.
The fate of Marine Le Pen was in the hands of a woman, Bénédicte de Perthuis, who acknowledged in advance the importance of the case, including its political impact. The judge, however, warned in advance that the court would act "in the usual manner" and emphasized that it was primarily a criminal proceeding.
The presiding judge specified that Marine Le Pen was found "guilty" of diverting public funds estimated in her personal case at 474,000 euros. The far-right leader allegedly used this amount to pay her bodyguard, chief of staff, and an assistant. Le Pen insisted during the trial that she had done nothing "illegal" and that the accusations were due to "a narrow interpretation" of the notion of parliamentary assistants during her time as a Member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2017.
Judge Bénédicte de Perthuis, on her part, stated that the investigation had shown that the beneficiaries of these funds were actually "working for the party" and not performing tasks related to the EU.
"The investigation also showed that it was not administrative errors, but embezzlement within a system put in place to reduce the party's expenses," the magistrate pointed out.