[ad_۱]
The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has announced she will run for the presidency in ۲۰۲۷ and will lodge an appeal to France’s highest court over her sentence to wear an electronic ankle tag for the embezzlement of European parliament funds.
“Tonight, I am a candidate in the presidential election,” Le Pen, ۵۷, told TF۱ television on Tuesday night.
Earlier on Tuesday a French court of appeal had upheld Le Pen’s conviction for playing a central role in orchestrating a fake-jobs scam of unprecedented size and duration. She was found guilty of having played a key part in the embezzlement of more than €۲.۸m in European parliament funds and funnelling the money into her party in Paris between ۲۰۰۴ and ۲۰۱۶.
Although the court shortened Le Pen’s ban on running for elected office, effectively allowing her to run in the spring, it also handed her a three-year jail term, with two years suspended. During the other year, it said, she must wear an electronic ankle tag for monitoring, restricting the hours she could leave her home.
Le Pen, who heads the anti-immigration the National Rally (RN) party, had previously suggested she would not run for president if her movements were restricted.
Under France’s house arrest system, a magistrate can approve times at which someone with an ankle tag can leave their home, and has to pre-approve outings nationwide. Le Pen had said that wearing a tag would make it impossible for her to go out at night and attend rallies.
However on Tuesday night she announced she would make a further appeal against her conviction to France’s highest court, the court of cassation, a move that would effectively put on hold Tuesday’s sentencing and mean there will now be a window of time during which Le Pen will not be fitted with any kind of electronic tag.
“I consider us innocent of the things we are accused of,” she told TF۱, saying she believed this would allow her to campaign freely until the two-round presidential election in April and May, even though the court may be able to rule before then.
“The appeal to the court of cassation suspends the effects of the judgment, so I will campaign without an electronic ankle bracelet,” she told TF۱. The move, she added, would allow voters “the last word”.
All now depends on timings. The court of cassation would normally take between one year and ۱۸ months to produce a decision on the legal basis of Le Pen’s conviction. It is not certain if the court could rule any earlier than usual.
On Tuesday critics rounded on Le Pen. Manon Aubry, of the radical left La France Insoumise party, said her decision to run showed the RN was “a party of thieves and liars”.
The Socialist party leader, Olivier Faure, said the far-right leader should not run, as any political candidate should be “exemplary”. He said: “Le Pen, now, is alone with her conscience.”
Le Pen had been considered one of the top contenders for the ۲۰۲۷ presidency until last March when, after a first trial, she was barred from running for election for five years with immediate effect.
She appealed against last year’s verdict and a fresh trial at Paris’s court of appeal was held this year. On Tuesday, Le Pen’s ban on running for public office was shortened to ۱۵ months – which she has already served – with the remaining ۳۰ months suspended. She was also given a €۱۰۰,۰۰۰ (£۸۵,۰۰۰) fine.
The appeal court said that although it had confirmed Le Pen’s guilt, it had also taken into account “the voter’s freedom of choice, a prerequisite for the expression of democratic suffrage”.
State prosecutors summing up the case had said Le Pen had been at the centre of a “thought-out”, “centralised” and almost “industrial” system to embezzle European parliament funds.
They told the court that taxpayer money allocated to members of the European parliament to pay their assistants based in Strasbourg or Brussels was siphoned off by the party from ۲۰۰۴ to ۲۰۱۶ to pay its own workers in France, in violation of the parliament’s rules.
The staff in France had no connection to work undertaken at the European parliament, prosecutors said. The loss to European funds was estimated at millions of euros. The party, then called Front National, made substantial savings through the system, the prosecutors said. The system was well documented in email exchanges and party papers.
Le Pen has twice lost to Emmanuel Macron in the final presidential run-off, in ۲۰۱۷ and in ۲۰۲۲, when she increased her score to more than ۴۱%. The French constitution prevents any president from running for a third consecutive term.
