French far-right leader Le Pen says will run in 2027 presidential election

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen has said she will run in France’s 2027 presidential election after a court shortened a ban on her running for office, reopening the door for the 57-year-old to take part.

Le Pen’s announcement in an interview with broadcaster TF1 on Tuesday followed an appeals court ruling earlier that found her guilty of misusing public funds but reduced a ban on her holding elected office to 45 months rather than 60, with 30 suspended.

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Because the ban has been running since March last year, when a lower court sentenced her to a five-year ban from public office and two years in prison over a fake jobs scam at the European Parliament, she has already served the 15 months required by the new ruling.

“Tonight, I am a candidate in the presidential election,” she said.

Le Pen has tried and failed to win the presidency three times. Now, she is gambling that voters can overlook the guilty verdict.

The new sentence would require Le Pen to wear an electronic ankle tag if she campaigned in the elections, which she has said she is not willing to do.

She has said it would be too difficult to campaign under France’s house arrest system, which requires a magistrate to approve times at which someone with an ankle tag can leave their home, and pre-approve outings all over France.

She told TF1 that she will appeal Tuesday’s ruling to France’s highest court, the Cour de Cassation, and that until that court delivers its ruling, she will not need to wear an electronic tag during the campaign, ⁠although the appeals court ruled she must wear one for a year.

“I had indicated that I would not campaign while wearing an electronic tag. But since I have the option of appealing … and the government is suspending the effects of the ruling, I will therefore campaign without an electronic tag,” Le Pen told TF1.

Her candidacy paves the way for her to join the race to replace President Emmanuel Macron next year, which is viewed as her party’s best ever chance to win the Elysee.

Recent opinion polls have mostly suggested the far right will lead in the first round of next year’s vote, but are divided on the outcome of the second round run-off.

Many have shown slightly better results for her 30-year-old lieutenant, Jordan Bardella, leader of their National Rally (RN) party, than Le Pen, but their adversaries believe the veteran politician would be a fiercer opponent. An opinion poll of more than 1,700 registered voters in May suggested Le Pen could win the run-offs next year if she competes.

Other polls, however, have suggested centrist former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe – who is also courting right-wing voters – could win a second round against the far right.

In the TF1 interview, Le Pen said that she and Bardella will “very quickly start this presidential campaign”.

“We have offered the French a duo … and it is together that we will convince the French that what they are experiencing today is not inevitable,” she said.

The first trial last year found Le Pen – along with 24 former European lawmakers, assistants and accountants, as well as the party itself – guilty of operating a system from 2004 to 2016 to use European Parliament funds to employ RN staff in France. Le Pen claimed her party was the victim of a “witch hunt”.

During the appeal trial, she denied that the RN had a system to embezzle European Parliament funds, and has said her party acted in “complete good faith”.

But prosecutors allege that after she took over the party leadership in 2011 she “professionalised” a system to divert EU funds that was first introduced haphazardly by her late father, party cofounder Jean-Marie Le Pen.