Marine Le Pen will run in 2027 — even sentenced to wear an electronic tag
An appeals court upheld Marine Le Pen's EU funds conviction, but she announced she will run for the French presidency in 2027 and appeal to avoid the electronic monitor.
Marine Le Pen will run for the French presidency in 2027. The announcement came hours after an appeals court upheld her conviction for misusing European Parliament funds — and ordered her to wear an electronic tag for a year. The French far-right leader, who said only last week she would not run wearing an ankle monitor, has since found a legal way out.
Can Le Pen run for president despite the conviction?
She can. The court upheld the conviction but removed the obstacle that would have kept her out of the race, and Le Pen immediately announced an appeal to the Cour de cassation, France’s highest court. That appeal, she explained in a television interview on Tuesday night, suspends the electronic-monitoring sentence: “I will therefore campaign without an electronic bracelet.” The top court has already indicated it can rule before the presidential election, whose first round is set for April 2027.
Her opponents were scathing about the decision to run with a confirmed conviction on her back, and the question that has hovered over her own camp for months — Le Pen or her protégé Jordan Bardella? — has now been answered by the woman herself. French justice, meanwhile, still holds the final word on the timetable.
What does this mean for Europe?
It means the most closely watched election of 2027 starts with the far-right candidate polling strongly and a court case dangling over the campaign — a cocktail set to dominate European politics for the next year, just as NATO argues over who pays the bill for the continent’s defence. Rulings from France’s top court are published on the official Cour de cassation website.
Image: Vox España / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
