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The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen launched her presidential campaign on Wednesday, after a decision by a court of appeal shortened her ban on running for office, allowing her to take part in the 2027 vote.
Le Pen said voters would decide her future.
“I’m a citizen like anyone else, who is using their rights,” Le Pen said, attempting to brush aside the legal woes which her political opponents said would now plague her campaign for next spring’s presidential election.
On Tuesday, a court of appeal upheld Le Pen’s conviction for playing a key role in orchestrating a fake-jobs scam of unprecedented size and duration.
Le Pen, the figurehead of the far-right, anti-immigration National Rally party (RN), was found guilty of being at the centre of the embezzlement of more than €2.8m (£2.4m) in European parliament funds and funnelling the money into her party in Paris between 2004 and 2016.
Although her ban on running for office was shortened, opening the possibility of a presidential campaign, she was also handed a form of one-year custodial sentence in which she would have to wear an electronic ankle tag restricting her movements to and from her home.
This sentence would have complicated her ability to campaign, and she had previously said she would not run for president under such restrictions.
But Le Pen confirmed on Wednesday that she would appeal to France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, on a point of law. While she lodges that appeal, her sentence will be put on hold. This meant she could run without wearing an electronic tag, she said.
In La Flèche, a town in La Sarthe, Le Pen arrived for a market walkabout while some leftwing protesters shouted “thief”, “criminal” and “prison”. Crowds of RN voters gathered to take selfies and support her in the town which recently voted in a RN mayor.
Le Pen, who is seen as able to potentially reach the final round of the presidential race, was asked by reporters if she was simply stalling the justice system by lodging an appeal over legal technicalities to France’s highest court. She said: “I’m not playing for time.” She said she was “innocent” of all charges.
Facing a barrage of questions from reporters on the complexities of her legal case, Le Pen said: “I’m not going to spend the campaign on legal analysis ... What I want now is to talk about politics because that is about French people’s futures and they want solutions to their daily problems like the cost of living, security issues, deindustrialisation and low salaries.”
But French politics is now dominated by the legal uncertainty surrounding Le Pen and whether there is any possibility she could end up having to wear an electronic tag close to the two-round vote in April and May.
“Marine Le Pen is a delinquent,” said the socialist MP Boris Vallaud. “She’s a delinquent who was convicted in a first trial [in 2025] and then on appeal [this week].”
Gabriel Attal, Emmanuel Macron’s former prime minister, who is hoping to run as a centrist said: “Her candidacy is hanging by a legal thread.” He said Le Pen had taken the campaign “hostage”.
Manuel Bompard, of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left party, La France Insoumise, said it was “extraordinary” that Le Pen would decide to run just after an appeal court upheld her conviction for embezzlement.
Le Pen’s lawyer, Rodolphe Bosselut, admitted on French radio that running for president while lodging an appeal to France’s highest court was “a risk”.
The Court of Cassation had previously suggested that it could return a verdict on Le Pen’s case early next year, although it usually takes longer. It is not mandated to look at the facts of the case, but just to rule on whether correct legal form has been followed.
If the court ruled in Le Pen’s favour that correct legal form was not respected, she would face another trial. But there would not be time to organise a new trial before the presidential vote.
If the court rules against Le Pen and decides that that correct form had been followed, then Le Pen’s conviction and sentence would become definitive. She could in theory face having to begin her sentence with an electronic ankle bracelet in the weeks before the election. However, the process of organising and fitting electronic monitoring often takes many months, which could allow her to reach the presidency without wearing a tag.
If Le Pen were to win the presidency in May before an electronic tag had been fitted, she would have presidential immunity for her term in office and would not face wearing an electronic tag until she left office.
