Appeals Court Reduces Le Pen's Ineligibility Sentence, Clearing Her for 2027 Race

The Paris Court of Appeal upheld Marine Le Pen's conviction for embezzling European Parliament funds in the Rassemblement National assistants affair but significantly reduced her sentence: three years in prison (two suspended, one under electronic monitoring) and 45 months of ineligibility, 30 of them suspended. The firm portion of the ineligibility penalty — reduced to 15 months — was deemed already served, having run out on June 30 under the provisional-execution order from the first-instance verdict. The ruling clears Le Pen to run in the April–May 2027 presidential election; she immediately confirmed her candidacy and announced she would still appeal to the Court of Cassation. The first-instance court had barred her from running for five years with immediate effect.