Two years ahead of France's next presidential election, predicting the consequences of far-right leader Marine Le Pen's March 31 conviction is more about hypothesizing than deducing from certainties. She has since appealed the decision in the case involving her Front National (FN, now the Rassemblement National, RN) party's fake European parliamentary assistant jobs.

Here is what we know about the next steps of the legal procedure, from its likely outcomes to its unresolved questions.

According to what the Constitutional Council said on March 28, local officials sentenced to a ban on running for public office, a penalty known as "ineligibility," automatically forfeit their elected office, whether they appeal the decision or not. Lawmakers sentenced to the same penalty, however, do not step down until all appeal possibilities are exhausted, as they "participate in the exercise of national sovereignty" and "oversee government action." Le Pen, who has appealed, will, therefore, soon lose her position as a departmental councilor for the northern Pas-de-Calais department, located on France's northern coast, but she will retain her seat as an MP for as long as she is not definitively convicted.

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