French court allows Marine Le Pen to run — but orders home monitoring

ByJohn Rioba

First Published: July 8, 2026, 2:15 AM ET

PARIS — Appeals court lets Le Pen run for president – with an ankle monitor.

The gilded hallways of the Palais de Justice fell silent Tuesday afternoon as a panel of appellate judges delivered a verdict that simultaneously upheld a fraud conviction and resurrected a presidential campaign. Marine Le Pen, the fifty-seven-year-old leader of the National Rally stood before the bench as the court confirmed her role in a scheme that misappropriated $2.8 million in European Parliament funds between 2004 and 2016.

Chief Judge Mich├¿le Agi said in her verdict that Le Pen’s party embezzled funds by using European Parliament money to pay its own employees.

The judges noted that defendants knew the employment contracts “did not correspond to reality.” The appeals court sentenced Le Pen to three years in prison, with two years suspended and one year to be served at home under electronic monitoring. The judges also reduced her ban from public office to forty-five months, with thirty months suspended-effectively leaving a fifteen-month ban that she has already served since her original conviction in March 2025. A fine of $100,000 remains in place.

“This verdict represents a clear overreach by the judiciary into the political sphere,” said Fran├ºois ÔÇæXavier Bellamy, a member of the European Parliament from the Republicans party. He respected the independence of the judiciary but expressed concern that the timing of the ruling could.

The judges relied only on facts supported by the criminal evidence in the case and relevant penal codes and did not play politics. Evidence included the payrolls that highlighted the theft, testimony from employees and contracts that stated they were doing official work when they were actually doing work for a political party and in France. The sentence was a correction, not an acknowledgement of wrongdoing; the use of home confinement is a standard practice in France under existing law for nonviolent offenders.

“Cast doubt on the integrity of the electoral process. My client has been unfairly targeted. The court ignored evidence showing the parliamentary assistants performed legitimate work,” Jean-Philippe Chenu said. The defense team would decide within days whether to appeal to France’s highest court.

Le Pen has long maintained that she would not campaign while wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet.

Member of parliament for the far-right Rassemblement National [National Rally-RN] party, Marine Le Pen arrives ahead of the hearing for the verdict in her trial at the Paris courthouse on the Ile de la Cité, in Paris, France, on July 7, 2026. Photo: Mustafa Yalcin/Anadolu via Getty Images

“When you are a presidential candidate, you need to be completely free to move about. That is not the case if you are wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet,” Le Pen said. The ruling transforms what was once a categorical disqualification into a painful choice. Le Pen can run in the April 2027 presidential election, but she would do so while wearing an ankle tag that confines her to her home each night.

She has repeatedly said she would not campaign under such restrictions.

Le Pen plans to unveil her plans. Denouncing the accusations, Le Pen said the sentence was an attempt to stop her from entering the Élysée Palace for “political reasons.” “It was a very Dark day for our democracy,” she said the night she was convicted.

The decision scrambles a presidential race already regarded as one of the most consequential in modern French history. Le Pen has run three times for the presidency, advancing to the runoff in 2017 and 2022 but losing to Macron both times. If she steps aside, her thirty-year-old protégé and party president, Jordan Bardella, would become the National Rally’s candidate. Polls have shown both figures as strong contenders to reach the runoff.

For French taxpayers, the ruling raises questions about accountability.

The court determined that public funds intended for the European Parliament were diverted for party operations-a finding that now stands after two judicial reviews. The defendants were ordered to reimburse the European Parliament for $2.8 million. Le Pen left the courtroom smiling but offered no comment to reporters.

She proceeded to the National Rally headquarters to consult with party officials. The court’s ruling addressed the fraud conviction, not whether Le Pen could physically campaign under monitoring. The coming hours will determine whether France’s most prominent far-right figure will mount a fourth bid for the presidency-or whether she will cede the stage to the younger generation she has groomed to succeed her.