Marine Le Pen loses appeal but could still run for president of France
by Lisa Hornung · UPIJuly 7 (UPI) -- Marine Le Pen's appeal verdict Tuesday has cleared the way for her to run for president of France again, but whether she will isn't clear.
Le Pen, leader of France's far-right National Rally party who was convicted on charges of embezzlement for misusing European Parliament funds, lost the appeal. But the court shortened the ban on running for office from five years to 15 months, which have already been served. So, she could run for office now. She was a member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2017.
Le Pen, 57, has said running for president of France would be too difficult because she is required to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for a year -- instead of two years in prison -- that would restrict her movements, making campaigning too difficult.
She could still appeal to France's highest court, the Court of Cassation, and she has 10 days to decide. That would also prevent her from campaigning because of the time it would take, likely several months.
Le Pen told supporters in Liévin, France, over the weekend, "if the judiciary bars me from running for the presidency," she would instead support her friend, Jordan Bardella.
Le Pen is the daughter of the late Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the far-right party that his daughter now runs.
She and 10 other party members were convicted in a fake jobs scheme.
The group was found guilty in March of diverting more than $3.4 million of European Parliament funds that was supposed to be used to hire aides for MEPs to pay people to work on internal National Rally party matters in France, instead of for the EP itself.
She was sentenced to four years in prison, two of which were suspended, fined $117,000 and banned from running for public office for five years. She had planned to make a fourth attempt to run for president of France in 2027.
The 11 co-defendants must pay about $2.29 million to reimburse the contracts they paid to assistants, plus more than $171,000 in moral damages to the European Union, plus legal fees.
The co-defendants all have individual fines, including $114,377 for Le Pen.
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