As the appeal trial of far-right leader Marine Le Pen concludes, her bid for the presidency is at stake

Paris — Marine Le Pen’s appeal trial on the alleged Misuse of European Parliament funds Wednesday concludes with one question that looms above all others: Will the far-right French leader do it? Be able to run for president Next year?

Le Pen, 57, is appealing the ruling issued in March 2025, which convicted her and more than 20 other members of her National Rally party of misusing European Parliament funds to appoint aides in the period from 2004 to 2016 and barring her from holding elected office for five years.

She denies accusations that she was at the heart of a fraudulent scheme aimed at embezzling EU funds.

The outcome of the appeal trial will be announced later, likely before the summer.

That’s why the outcome of the five-week trial at the Paris Court of Appeal may change the course of the 2027 French presidential election.

Le Pen was widely seen as a leading contender to succeed centrist President Emmanuel Macron in the 2027 elections until a Paris court barred her from holding office over accusations of misuse of public money.

She twice competed in runoffs against Macron in 2017 and 2022, and her National Rally party has topped the polls in recent years.

The appeal trial represents a second chance to win an acquittal that would pave her way into the presidential race.

If convicted, Le Pen could be banned from holding any elected office. In that case, she said, her student, 30-year-old Jordan Bardella, would run instead.

Bardella’s popularity has soared in recent years, but some observers have pointed to his relative lack of experience, especially in international and economic affairs, as a potential weakness in his presidential bid.

Le Pen was joined in her appeal by ten other officials convicted last year, in addition to the party itself.

They are seeking to overturn convictions related to the misuse of funding allocated to European Parliament aides between 2004 and 2016, while Le Pen was serving as an MEP.

Prosecutors say she hired several people as EU parliamentary aides but had them work for her party instead. The investigation showed that some people had no contact with members of the European Parliament at all, and that one of them worked as Le Pen’s bodyguard in violation of parliamentary rules.

In March 2025, a Paris court ruled that Le Pen was at the heart of a “fraudulent scheme” that her party used to steal European Parliament funds worth 2.9 million euros ($3.4 million). I was given a – Prohibition from holding any elected position for a period of five yearsTwo years of house arrest with an electronic bracelet, and an additional two years of suspended imprisonment.

Le Pen denounced the “democratic scandal”, while anti-corruption activists claimed her conviction was proof that no one is above the law.

The French advocacy group Transparency noted that the ruling came after years of investigation and a lengthy trial in which Le Pen and other party members were able to defend their positions freely.

The house arrest sentences are suspended until the appeal is decided.

The previous ruling is not expected to affect the trial, which ends Wednesday and has begun again. In France, criminal defendants have the right to ask a higher court to review their case after conviction.

During the appeal trial, Le Pen admitted that some employees were paid as EU parliamentary aides She did work for her partythen known as the National Front, but insisted that it believed such action was permissible and never tried to hide it.

“Therein lies the error: there were certainly some associates, on a case-by-case basis, who must have worked either marginally, more or entirely… for the party. And there it is,” Le Pen told the three-judge panel.

She also blamed European Parliament officials for not warning her party, at the time, that the way it was recruiting people might be breaking any rules.

“We have never hidden anything,” she insisted.

Prosecutors said funding the staff with EU money was unfair to other local political parties, and that Le Pen, a lawyer by training, could not have failed to notice the discrepancy between the aides’ actual jobs and the contracts they signed.

One of the plaintiffs, Stephane Mados-Blanchet, noted that “public funds were plundered drop by drop until they formed a river.” He denounced the “regime” led by Le Pen.

“The misappropriation of public funds has been deliberately and carefully concealed,” he said.

Thierry Ramonatxo, another prosecutor, said the alleged misappropriation of public funds represented a “very serious violation of integrity” that gave the party a “tangible advantage in the form of significant savings made at the expense of the European Parliament.”

They asked the court to ban Le Pen from holding elected office for five years and to sentence her to house arrest for a year using an electronic card.