Marine Le Pen put out of the courts. The Paris Criminal Court decided this Monday, March 31, to condemn the leader of the national rally to four years in prison, including two farm developed under electronic bracelet, but especially to five years of ineligibility with immediate application in the case of European parliamentary assistants. A very heavy decision, which for the moment confirms its hopes of a fourth candidacy for the presidential election in 2027. But several judicial appeals are still available to it. L’Express takes stock of the various questions that arise following this historic conviction.
What are the motivations for conviction?
The court has chosen to follow a large part of the requisitions made by the prosecution at the end of last November. President Bénédicte de Perthuis thus confirmed the existence of a “system” and an “organized and centralized practice” to “optimize” in a complete “manner” the use of envelopes paid to the MEPs of the National Front between 2004 and 2016 in order to finance the party’s activities in France. Thus, the twelve assistants of nine MEPs (including Marine Le Pen) were well “remunerated” by the European Parliament, while they worked “in reality” for the National Front for tasks having no connection with Brussels.
About Marine Le Pen in particular, the court considered that it was “at the heart” of this system “in 2009”, and that the latter “registered with authority and determination in the functioning established by her father, in whom she had participated since 2004”. Furthermore, President Bénédicte de Perthuis said that as soon as Marine Le Pen headed the National Front, in 2011, the “system” optimized “and the contracts” multiplied “. “The hires was decided by Marine Le Pen without the deputy being consulted,” added the court.
To justify the sentence of immediate ineligibility against Marine Le Pen, President Bénédicte de Perthuis said that the court had “taken into account, in addition to the risk of recurrence, the major public disorder, in this case the fact that a candidate for the presidential election is already condemned at first”, continued the jurisdiction, deeming “necessary” (Immediate) “to avoid an irreparable disorder to public order”.
What possible remedies for Marine Le Pen?
Like any justiciable, Marine Le Pen can of course appeal from this court decision. This is what his lawyer Rodolphe bosselut announced as early as Monday afternoon, denouncing a “blow to democracy”. But it is there that the details of the decision taken by the Paris Criminal Court is particularly severe: by assorting the sentence of five years of ineligibility of the RN leader of a provisional application, this judgment becomes applicable immediately, and the appeal procedure is not enough to suspend this conviction.
In view of the usual hearing deadlines, AFP estimates that the appeal trial could be held within a year, with three months again before the rendering of a new decision. Thus, the deliberation could only be rendered a few months before the presidential election of 2027, which could possibly “save” Marine Le Pen. But it would still be necessary that the judgment in second instance is more lenient towards it.
Several scenarios are thus possible. The Court of Appeal could decide to return completely to the conviction of the triple presidential candidate and relax it: in this case, Marine Le Pen could of course be a candidate in 2027. But this track would be a divine surprise for the RN, as the evidence against the formation of the far right, accused of embezzlement of public funds, are overwhelming.
The second instance could also decide to lighten the penalty of ineligibility, by making it shorter or by removing its provisional application. This last case could also make a candidacy of Marine Le Pen possible to the next presidential election, because the other appeals that the RN’s leader would initiate before the courts – in particular by providing itself as a cassation – this time would suspend its conviction and therefore its ineligibility. But this strategy would fall into the water if the Court of Cassation made its decision before the 2027 presidential election while confirming its conviction.
Conversely, the Court of Appeal could issue the same judgment as in the first instance, that is to say ineligibility with a provisional execution of five years, and therefore confirm the impossibility for Marine Le Pen to present herself to the next presidential election. In this scenario, other appeals would then be possible, and in particular that of appealing to cassation. But this track also turns out to be particularly arduous for the RN lead head. Because if the Court of Cassation does not make its deliberation before the presidential election – which is far from being unthinkable in view of the very short deadlines in which all this would take place -, ineligibility would then be maintained. Thus, it can be estimated that if the appeal trial does not lighten clearly or does not come back to the conviction of the RN lead head, it seems very difficult to see her candidate in 2027.
What are the other convictions?
If her judgment is obviously the most symbolic, Marine Le Pen is not the only figure in the national rally to have been condemned on Monday. Louis Aliot, vice-president of the national rally but above all mayor of Perpignan, was also sentenced to a sentence of 18 months in prison, six months of which were firm, directly arranged under electronic bracelet, as well as three years of ineligibility. The latter is not however immediately applicable; If he appeals, he will not lose the town hall of Perpignan. But if the judgment in second instance confirmed the conviction of the criminal court, it could probably not be represented in 2026.
Julien Odoul, who had struggled to justify during the trial why he asked in 2015 to “get to know” the MEP who officially employed him as a parliamentary assistant, was sentenced to a sentence of eight months with simple and a year of ineligibility, without provisional execution. If he appeals, he will not lose his mandate as a regional councilor or his mandate as a deputy. In total, 23 people were condemned, historic executives like Wallerand de Saint-Just in Bruno Gollnisch to certain less known figures such as Catherine Griset, close friend of Marine Le Pen, Thierry Légier, bodyguard of Jean-Marie Le Pen, then Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, or Nicolas Bay, former Vice -President of the RN who had left the party in 2022 to join Reconquer -before being excluded last June -.
Another consequence of this, significant trial: the national rally was also sentenced to a sentence of two million euros, including one million firm, and a confiscation of one million euros seized during the investigation. For a party whose financial difficulties have always been present – and have been one of the motivations to use the envelopes of the MEPs of the European Parliament in order to operate the party in Paris – this part of the deliberation could also be a problem, in particular with a view to the organization of the next electoral campaigns.
What consequences for 2027?
As it stands, Marine Le Pen cannot therefore be a candidate for the 2027 presidential election, or even in the event of legislative elections in the next five years. In the scenario where his appeal procedure would confirm the judgment rendered at first instance, all eyes would then be on a man: Jordan Bardella, who would probably take up the torch to bring the candidacy of the national rally to the next presidential election.
Like a pre-courtyard sign, Marine Le Pen said that the President of the RN had “of course the capacity to be president of the Republic” with BFM TV before his judgment. “When we reach the level of Jordan Bardella at the age he has, there is no reason to deprive himself of an ambition that could overcome the one today,” she added. An “ambition” which could therefore well accelerate impromptu, but which obviously raises the question of the capacity of Jordan Bardella, today 29 years old, to be able to take on such a role.
Remarks abundant by the vice-president of the Louis Aliot party this Monday morning, before the judgment, which claimed that “he does not make mystery that today Jordan Bardella would be the best placed, obviously, to succeed (in Marine Le Pen) to a candidacy for the presidential election”.
Furthermore, in principle, in the still distant hypothesis where Jordan Bardella were to be elected President of the Republic in 2027, he could possibly make the choice to appoint Marine Le Pen Prime Minister. At first glance, the ineligibility sentence thus prohibits being an election, and not to be appointed to a government position. But everything would depend on the reading of article 131-26 of the penal code which provides that “the prohibition of the right to vote or the ineligibility […] carry out prohibition or inability to exercise a public service “. However, lawyers do not agree whether the” public service “includes government positions or not, this situation not yet occurred.
This choice, which would be a real foot-of-nose to justice against whom the national rally wants to prepare for its response, is still of course today in politics fiction. But at a time when the national rally faces an almost unprecedented crisis, all the consequences of this historical condemnation are still far from being known.