Le Pen will appeal conviction, her lawyer says

Reuters

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen will file an appeal after a French court found her guilty of embezzlement charges and barred her from running for office for five years, her lawyer Rodolphe Bosselut said on Monday (March 31).

The judge convicted Le Pen of misappropriating EU funds and also gave her a four-year prison sentence - two years of which are a suspended sentence and two which will be served under home detention. She received a 100,000-euro ($108,200) fine.

Neither the prison sentence nor the fine would be applied until her appeals are exhausted. But the five-year ban from running for office kicks in immediately, via a so-called "provisional execution" measure requested by prosecutors.

The French court's ruling was a catastrophic setback for Le Pen, the National Rally (RN) party chief who has long been one of the most prominent figures in the European far right and who has been the front-runner in opinion polls for the 2027 contest.

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