The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has been barred from running for president in 2027 after a court found her guilty of a vast system of embezzlement of European parliament funds and banned her from running for public office with immediate effect, reports The Guardian.
The decision was a political earthquake for Le Pen, who had hoped to make a fourth bid for president for her far-right, anti-immigration National Rally party.
Le Pen, 56, said before the verdict that that any immediate ban on running for election would be like a “political death sentence” and that judges had “the power of life or death over our movement”. She is likely to immediately appeal against the verdict.
Judges handed Le Pen a five year ban on running for public office with the added provision that it will take immediate effect. It will apply even if she appeals.
Le Pen, who left the court before the hearing had finished, was also sentenced to four years in prison with two years suspended. She was handed an €100,000 fine.
Le Pen and 24 party members, including nine former members of the European parliament and their 12 parliamentary assistants, were found guilty of a vast scheme over many years to embezzle European parliament funds, by using money earmarked for European parliament assistants to instead pay party workers in France.
The so-called fake jobs system covered parliamentary assistant contracts between 2004 and 2016, and was unprecedented in scale and duration, causing losses of €4.5m to European taxpayer funds.