French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was convicted of embezzlement on Monday, March 31, and sentenced to a five-year ban on running for office, effective immediately, putting her bid to run in the 2027 presidential election in jeopardy. She was also given a four-year prison term, but will not go to jail, with two years of the term being suspended and the other two to be served with an electronic bracelet.
Le Monde's journalist Clément Guillou, who covers the French far right, answered readers' questions about the implications of the Paris court's decision in a liveblog on Monday. Here are those questions and answers in English.
Yes, it will. The Rassemblement National (RN, Marine Le Pen's party) has consistently called for snap elections, after having failed to clinch a majority in July 2024. But with a dissolution, Marine Le Pen, who can currently keep her seat as a member of the Assemblée, would not be able to run for re-election. She would disappear from the heart of French political life, even though it is in her role as leader of the largest group in the Assemblée that she occupies a central place in debates.
This hypothesis would no doubt give the RN pause for thought in its desire to contest Prime Minister François Bayrou and ultimately provoke early parliamentary elections.
But it is worth noting that the RN could also want to provoke parliamentary elections with the aim of propelling Marine Le Pen to the prime minister's office, since there's nothing to stop her from being prime minister. French prime ministers are not elected, they are appointed by the president based on who has a majority in the Assemblée Nationale.
This is undoubtedly only the beginning of the populist offensive on this theme. The denouncing of a political trial began in November after the prosecution's sentencing requests, which were harsher than the RN had expected. Marine Le Pen's populist allies have already reacted to her conviction – Viktor Orban, Matteo Salvini and Geert Wilders, for example – and the refrain that the RN is a victim of a political-judicial system is sure to be heard over the coming days.
It's a line often heard in the mouths of far-right activists, who sometimes identify with the party as victims of a "system" that systematically disadvantages them, just as it "prevents" the RN from exercising power.
At the moment, no one at the RN is considering any other option than Jordan Bardella. He has legitimacy from the party members after his election as party president. He has electoral legitimacy following his success in the European elections. He has a firm grip on the party and all opinion polls show he is popular. Party vice president Sébastien Chenu may have thought he could challenge him for the role of Marine Le Pen's second-in-command, but he was soon put in his place. The "ticket" formed by Le Pen and Bardella had the advantage of killing off any internal competition.
However, now that his candidacy is the preferred hypothesis, who can say what ambitions may arise over the next two years? This is true within the party, but also elsewhere on the far right. You are also right to point out that Le Pen may no longer be in a position to oppose an alliance between the right and the far right, which Bardella is more in favor of.
The court's decision considerably opens up the political game on the right and far right.
Most political reactions have focused on the immediate effect of the sentence – the fact that Le Pen is banned from running for office effective immediately, even if she appeals. Fewer are contesting the ban itself, which is the logical consequence of the trial and the latest law on the probity of public life.
That's what the RN has gambled on for several months, hoping that, like Donald Trump in the United States, the party will be galvanized by a negative decision against Marine Le Pen. It's also true that the general tone given since midday by political reactions or by guests on TV shows has tended to present Le Pen as a victim, even though she has just been found guilty.
However, the RN has just lost its "natural" candidate, the most experienced one – which is no meager criterion in a presidential election – and the only one who has been preparing for the Elysée for many years. Jordan Bardella is a back-up candidate that many political parties would dream of, but who also has objective weaknesses in such an election.
Assuming she wants to – which some RN members doubt – there's nothing to stop her inverting the ticket she's been selling with Jordan Bardella for the past 18 months.
This will be a major issue for the Rassemblement National in the coming months. The fines imposed by the courts on the RN as a legal entity will, in theory, be added to those imposed on the convicted people, which Marine Le Pen planned for the party to pay, and to the damages paid to the European Parliament.
The sum – which we don't yet know precisely – will be in the millions of euros, but the RN now receives €13.3 million in public funding thanks to the results of the last elections. What's more, the RN has reimbursed the loan it took out with a Czech-Russian bank. So the party is not suddenly going broke, contrary to what Marine Le Pen implied in an interview with La Tribune Dimanche newspaper on Sunday.
I salute your fertile imagination, I'm not sure even the RN strategists had thought of that. I'm also not sure that Jordan Bardella would agree to resign once elected, but in any case, a presidential pardon can only be granted once the court decision is final. Marine Le Pen plans to exhaust all possible appeals in this case, believing herself to be innocent.
This is indeed a question you can ask yourself – and that we have often asked the party's leaders in recent months. The party lived in denial that the court could ban her from running in elections effective immediately, in particular, said a former adviser to Marine Le Pen, because she was convinced that "it's bad luck" to envisage the worst.
Prior to the prosecution's sentencing request, the party's spokespersons had not been briefed on what to say in the event of a harsh request, and in recent days, the same spokespersons have been lamenting off-mike that they don't know how to react on Monday if the worst happens. Moreover, Jordan Bardella, in his public speeches, has always said that he was not preparing for a presidential candidacy. It's not likely that this will change in the immediate future.
It's likely to have crossed her mind. Marion Maréchal rejoined her aunt's orbit after leaving Eric Zemmour's party following the European elections in 2024. For the time being, it's nothing more than a small satellite party of the RN, with no particular clout and only Maréchal's media stature to draw on. But it carries little weight in relation to Jordan Bardella, who is very wary of it, as are the vast majority of RN elected representatives. She does, however, have the support of her aunt, and that can count for a lot. After Jean-Marie Le Pen's death, she asserted her desire to "take up the torch" of the Front National's co-founder, despite his multiple legal convictions.
Many of you have asked us about the prison sentence handed down to Marine Le Pen. If we're talking primarily about the ban on running for office, it's because it applies with immediate effect, even if she appeals. The prison sentence is less definite: It can be served at home with an electronic bracelet – sentences of two years or less are rarely served behind bars. And it is not final, as Le Pen is appealing, which does suspend the prison sentence.
You are right to point out that the president of the RN and probable plan B of the far right for 2027 was also cited in this case, but was ultimately not prosecuted. Following Libération's revelations that his proofs of work had been fabricated at a later date in the hope of deceiving the courts (he was not asked to provide them in the end), an anti-corruption organization filed a complaint "to interrupt the statute of limitations." However, judicial authorities have not yet opened an investigation. There is therefore no legal threat hanging over Jordan Bardella for the time being.