A Paris appeals court said on Wednesday it will rule on 7 July in a fraud case against far-right leader Marine Le Pen, in what is expected to be a pivotal moment for French politics.
A lower court handed the 57-year-old veteran politician a five-year ban from public office last year over a fake jobs scam at the European parliament, dashing her presidential ambitions.
In March 2025, a Paris court ruled that Le Pen was at the heart of “a fraudulent system” that her party used to siphon off European Parliament funds worth €2.9 million.
If the appeals court upholds that bombshell ruling, the three-time presidential candidate would be banned from running in 2027, widely seen as her best chance at the top job.
At the end of Wednesday’s proceedings, the court’s president said it will deliver the ruling on 7 July in the early afternoon.
“The sooner, the better, I feel,” Le Pen told reporters after the hearing.
Le Pen made it to the second round in the 2017 and 2022 presidential polls, losing to President Emmanuel Macron both times.
But he cannot run again next year after hitting the limit of two consecutive terms in office.
Le Pen has said she will decide whether to run for president after the ruling in the appeal trial, and has indicated that her lieutenant, 30-year-old Jordan Bardella who heads her National Rally (RN) party, could be the selected candidate instead.
A poll in November predicted that, should he run, Bardella would win the second round of the 2027 elections, no matter who stands against him.
Prosecutors last week demanded the court maintain a five-year ban and a four-year prison term with three years suspended for Le Pen in the case against her and other members of her anti-immigration RN party.
She had in the first trial received a four-year prison sentence, with two years suspended.
Prosecutors say funds deliberately misappropriated
Prosecutors argued the financing of employees by EU money was unfair to other domestic political parties and that Le Pen, a lawyer by training, couldn’t have failed to notice the discrepancy between aides’ actual jobs and the contracts they signed.
One prosecutor, Stéphane Madoz-Blanchet, pointed to “public money siphoned off drop by drop until it formed a river.” He denounced “a system” led by Le Pen.
“The acts of misappropriation of public funds were deliberately and carefully concealed,” he said.
Thierry Ramonatxo, another prosecutor, said the alleged misappropriation of public funds represents “a very serious breach of probity” that gave the party “a concrete advantage in the form of substantial savings made at the expense of the European Parliament.”
They have asked the court to ban Le Pen from holding elected office for five years and to sentence her to one year under house arrest with an electronic tag.
‘We have never concealed anything’
During the appeal trial, Le Pen acknowledged some employees paid as EU parliamentary aides performed work for her party but insisted that she believed such work was allowed and never attempted to hide it.
“The mistake lies here: there were certainly some aides, on a case-by-case basis, who must have worked either marginally, more substantially, or entirely…for the benefit of the party. And voilà,” Le Pen told the court.
She also reproached European Parliament officials for not warning her party that the way it was hiring people was potentially against any rules.
“We have never concealed anything,” she said.
The party’s lawyer said Wednesday that there was a “grey area” regarding the rules that should benefit the defendants.
“There have been perhaps some administrative shortcomings, perhaps carelessness, hastiness,” but overall party officials acted in good faith, David Dassa-Le Deist said.
Additional sources • AP, AFP
