The political future of Marine Le Pen, the stalwart of the French nationally oriented party and a leading contender for the Élysée Palace, hangs in the balance. On Tuesday, a Paris appeals court will decide whether to uphold a ban preventing her from running for public office, a ruling that threatens to derail her 2027 presidential ambitions and potentially hand the torch to her 30-year-old protégé.
A moment of reckoning for the National Rally
The verdict will determine whether the 57-year-old three-time presidential candidate will represent the National Rally (RN) in the race to succeed Emmanuel Macron, or whether the baton will pass to her youthful heir apparent, Jordan Bardella. As her party rides high in opinion polls, comfortably positioned to top the first round of voting, the stakes could not be higher.
Le Pen, who finished third in 2012 and lost to Macron in the run-offs of both 2017 and 2022, remains publicly defiant. “I am not afraid,” she declared this week. “If I can run, I will do so, as long as I can campaign.” Yet, a palpable sense of dread lingers among her allies. RN lawmaker Thomas Ménage acknowledged the emotional toll, admitting to journalists that an exclusion would constitute “a kind of personal grief.”
The spectre of the embezzlement scandal
The case dates back to a bombshell ruling last March, when a lower court convicted Le Pen of siphoning European Parliament funds. The verdict sent shockwaves far beyond France, handing her a five-year ban from public office and a four-year prison sentence — two of which were suspended — for misusing money intended for EU parliamentary assistants. Alongside 24 former MEPs, assistants, accountants, and the party itself, Le Pen was found guilty of orchestrating a system between 2004 and 2016 that channelled EU salary payments to staff who were actually working for the RN in France.
Le Pen has vehemently rejected the charges, branding the case a “witch hunt” against her party. During the appeal, she and 11 co-defendants denied operating any fraudulent scheme, insisting the millions of euros in question were spent in “perfect good faith.”
Prosecutors, however, painted a different picture, accusing her of “professionally mastering” a diversion method pioneered by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, after she took over the party leadership in 2011. The prosecution has demanded the five-year ineligibility order remain in place, alongside a four-year sentence with three years suspended.
Scenarios that could reshape French politics
Legal observers have sketched out several possible outcomes from the Palais de Justice. The best-case scenario for Le Pen — a full acquittal — is also viewed by most analysts as the least likely. She has since conceded to “an error” during the appellate process, acknowledging that some EU-paid staff worked on domestic matters but maintaining she believed such arrangements were permissible.
A more plausible outcome could see the court find her guilty yet reduce the ban on standing for office to two years or less, or eliminate it entirely. Because the ban was imposed with immediate effect by the lower court, Le Pen has been serving it since 31 March last year. Consequently, a suspension of two years or less would expire before the first round of voting scheduled for April 18, 2027. However, eligibility alone does not guarantee a smooth campaign; any custodial sentence or electronic tagging would severely hamper her ability to travel and rally support. “If I’m allowed to be a candidate but effectively prevented from campaigning freely, then, as you understand, it will be impossible,” Le Pen told French television. “I cannot be dependent on a judge’s permission to run my campaign.”
The court could also confirm the immediate five-year ban, mirroring the lower court. In theory, Le Pen could lodge a final appeal with France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, which has previously indicated it would rule before the election. But she has previously expressed reluctance to prolong the legal battle, arguing that lingering uncertainty would fatally wound her party’s chances. “You cannot start a presidential campaign at the last minute,” she warned during the appeal.
The Bardella shadow and party tensions
Polls suggest that both Le Pen — who has transformed the RN from a fringe nationalist movement into the single largest party in the French parliament — and Bardella would comfortably win the first round in 2027. Yet, left-wing and centrist opponents believe Bardella’s relative inexperience and unbaked political “brand” could prove a significant liability under the white heat of a presidential race. He has recently been forced to fend off media scrutiny, and even internal RN criticism, over how his high-profile romance with Princess Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies might be perceived by the working-class voters upon whom the party still heavily depends.
While party officials insist that Bardella and Le Pen are a united front, ready to campaign as a tandem regardless of who leads the ticket, cracks have emerged. Tensions simmer particularly over economic policy, with Bardella championing a markedly more free-market approach than his mentor. As for the final duel, polling remains split: some surveys show Le Pen defeating hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, as well as centrist former prime ministers Gabriel Attal and Édouard Philippe. Others, however, suggest that Philippe, who is aggressively courting centre-right voters, could beat any nationally oriented candidate in a head-to-head run-off.
