Le Pen can run for president with an e-tag

Former French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen's hopes of standing in next year's election are up in the air after a judge on Tuesday upheld her conviction for embezzlement of European Parliamentary funds.

Le Pen came second to President Emmanuel Macron in both 2017 and 2022, and has been well placed in opinion polls for the 2027 election.

In March 2025, the 57-year-old former leader of the far-right National Rally party received a five-year ban from holding public office after being found guilty of using parliamentary funds to pay her own party employees, rather than parliamentary assistants.

She was also given a four-year jail term, two years of which were suspended, with the other two to be served at home wearing an electronic tag, a ruling she had been seeking to overturn, to allow her a fourth run at the presidency next year.

The court fined her 100,000 euros ($114,362) but reduced her public office ban from five years to 45 months, 30 of which are suspended, and also cut the jail term to three years, two of which are suspended, and one is wearing an electronic tag.

These alterations to the sentence mean that technically she is free to stand, however, earlier this month she said she would not run for the presidency in those circumstances.

"If I can be a candidate, I will be a candidate, provided that I am able to campaign," she told French news channel LCI. "Because if I'm allowed to be a candidate but am effectively prevented from campaigning freely, then you understand that wouldn't be possible."

When asked if this specifically referred to electronic tagging, Le Pen said "Well, of course. I can't be dependent on a judge to authorize me to go hold a campaign rally ... or to visit a market."

Le Pen left the court without speaking to reporters, giving no indication of her thoughts or likely next course of action.

"The verdict is in: guilty, but eligible," said Reuters senior political correspondent Michel Rose. "The call is now hers, not (the court's)."

Le Pen followed in the footsteps of her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, the former leader of the old National Front party, as leader of the rebranded National Rally, before stepping down in November 2022, to be succeeded by 30-year-old Jordan Bardella.

If she decides to stick by her vow and not take part in the presidential race, he would be her obvious replacement as National Rally candidate.

Although they are the party's two most prominent figures, there has been a degree of policy division between them, most notably over how to handle the economy, and the particularly thorny issue of reforming France's pension system, which has been a long-running and deeply divisive issue for politicians across the party spectrum.