Christmas. 7, 2026, 2:52 PM EDT<\/time><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

PARIS (AP) — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen<\/a> will be allowed to run for president in next year’s election, after a court on Tuesday reduced her ban on holding elected office<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The court also upheld Le Pen’s March 2025 conviction for misusing European Parliament funds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The verdict is set to reshape the 2027 contest to replace President Emmanuel Macron<\/a>. The constitution prevents Macron from seeking a third consecutive term.<\/p>\n

Le Pen, 57, had appealed a 2025 conviction<\/a>that found her and other members of her National Rally party guilty of misusing European Parliament<\/a>funds by paying party staff with money intended for EU parliamentary assistants between 2004 and 2016.<\/p>\n

The lower court sentenced her to prison time<\/a>suspended pending appeal, and imposed a five-year ban on holding elected office.<\/p>\n

Le Pen has denied any wrongdoing. She had hoped to mount a fourth bid for the presidency. Although the court shortened her ban on running for office, it ruled that she must wear an electronic ankle bracelet for a year.<\/p>\n

Tuesday’s verdict is also likely to <\/strong>reverberate across the European Union<\/a>.<\/strong> If Le Pen does not run, her protege Jordan Bardella would replace her<\/a>. Bardella, 30, is the current president<\/a>of the anti-immigration, E.U.-skeptic National Rally.<\/p>\n

Le Pen could still appeal to the Court of Cassation, France’s highest court, but it’s unclear whether judges would suspend the sentence pending a final ruling.<\/p>\n

The Court of Cassation has previously said that, if asked to review the case, it would seek to issue a ruling before the 2027 presidential election.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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Christmas. 7, 2026, 2:52 PM EDT PARIS (AP) — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen will be allowed to run for president in next year’s election, after a court on Tuesday reduced her ban on holding elected office. The court also upheld Le Pen’s March 2025 conviction for misusing European Parliament funds. The verdict is set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}