Marine Le Pen to enter French presidential race as court trims ban

Marine Le Pen leaves the court in Paris without speaking to reporters. (Reuters: Benoit Tessier)

Marine Le Pen plans to enter the 2027 French presidential race after a Paris appeals court shortened her ban on holding public office.

The court upheld her conviction for misusing EU funds, but Ms Le Pen says she plans to appeal to a higher court.

The anti-immigrant National Rally (RN) party in France has been leading polls.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen announced on Tuesday that she will run for president in 2027 after an appeals court shortened her ban on holding public office.

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.

On Tuesday, the Paris appeals court upheld Le Pen's conviction for misusing European Parliament funds but reduced the ban on running for office, clearing the way for the 57-year-old to stand in next year's election.

The RN leads opinion polls for next April's election. And Le Pen, who has three times failed to win the presidency for the far-right in 15 years at the helm, is gambling that voters can overlook the guilty verdict.

"Tonight, I am candidate in the presidential election," she said in a prime-time interview on TF1 TV, hours after the ruling.

Speeches from prominent politicians featured attacks on the European Union and migration policies, as they seek to rally French voters ahead of presidential elections.

Le Pen had over the past months said she would not run for the presidency if the court put her under electronic monitoring because it would interfere with campaigning and undermine her credibility.

Her party had already started preparing for the possibility that her 30-year-old protege Jordan Bardella would be its candidate instead of her.

She told TF1 on Tuesday that she will appeal Tuesday's ruling to France's highest court, the Cour de Cassation, and that, until that court delivers its own ruling, she will not need to wear an electronic tag during the campaign, although the appeal court ruled she would wear one for a year.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen received mixed news from the French court. (Reuters: Stephanie Lecocq)

Tuesday's judgment made Le Pen ineligible to hold public office for 45 months rather than 60, with 30 suspended. As the ban has been running since last year's ruling, the required 15-month ban has already been served.

The court said that, although it had confirmed Le Pen's guilt, it had also taken