French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was cleared yesterday to run for president in 2027 by an appeals court that shortened her sentence for misusing European Union (EU) funds but ordered her to wear an electronic tag for a year.
Le Pen’s presidential hopes had been in limbo since March 2025, when she received a five-year electoral ban for using money from the European Parliament to pay wages for staff at her anti-immigrant National Rally (RN) party in France.
That party leads opinion polls for April’s election. But Le Pen, who has three times failed to win the presidency for the far-right in 15 years at the helm, must now decide whether to gamble that voters can overlook a custody regime that will require her to return home each night for most of the campaign.
The court upheld Le Pen’s conviction for embezzling European Parliament funds but chose to substantially shorten what had been a five-year ban on running for public office.
It also shortened the 57-year-old’s jail term to two years suspended and one, rather than two, with an electronic tag that confines her to her home at night.
It is now up to Le Pen to say whether she will pursue her long-held goal of becoming modern France’s first far-right president or hand the baton to her 30-year-old protégé, Jordan Bardella.
She previously said she would not run for the presidency while under electronic monitoring because it would interfere with campaigning and undermine her credibility.
As she left the courtroom, Le Pen was smiling but did not say a word. She left immediately for RN headquarters.
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