French hard-right leader Marine Le Pen has said she will run for the presidency in 2027, and appeal to the country’s highest court against an embezzlement conviction that requires her to wear an electronic tag for a year.
“The campaign begins tonight,” she told French TV in a combative primetime interview.
The National Rally (RN) leader said she would “pursue all legal avenues” to defend her innocence and appeal to France’s top civil court, the Court of Cassation.
The appeal means the order to wear the tag is suspended until the Court of Cassation delivers its verdict on the case – likely early in 2027.
The decision is a remarkable political gamble – and it puts an end to months of speculation that Le Pen would hand the candidacy to the 30-year-old president of her party, Jordan Bardella.
Bardella did not immediately react to Le Pen’s announcement, but the pair are due to appear together at a market in the Sarthe region of north-west France on Wednesday.
Public prosecutors have also said they will appeal against the appeal court’s decision to reduce the sentences against Le Pen.
Asked whether there was a scenario in which she might not run, Le Pen said: “No, there isn’t. I am here tonight to tell you I am a candidate for the 2027 election.”
She said her campaign would start immediately to “begin the rebirth of France” – and that she would not change her mind.
AFP via Getty ImagesAlthough Le Pen continues to maintain her innocence, she and a number of party colleagues have now been found guilty twice of a scam that she denied organising but did admit earlier to being “a mistake”.
The Paris appeal court confirmed the initial ruling that between 2004-16 she and others had embezzled funds meant for members of the European Parliament and had used the money to pay for party staff.
Her decision to announce her candidacy comes less than 10 months before the first round of the French presidential elections on 18 April and 2 May 2027.
The Court of Cassation is likely to take a few months to reach a decision. If it does confirm Tuesday’s verdict, Le Pen could find herself having to wear an electronic tag as the election campaign moves into its most important period early next year. This would risk becoming an embarrassment as well as a handicap.
In the hours after Tuesday’s court verdict, Le Pen was locked in talks with Bardella, as well as lawyers and party colleagues. Then she and Bardella were driven to the studios of TF1 TV for her decision.
If elected, she stated she and Bardella would work together – she as president and he as prime minister. “We have a solid partnership, we complement each other… We have offered the French a duo… that I believe is complementary, balanced, coherent, solid.”
She said Bardella had been with her for years and the cause was greater than the two of them: “The tests we have gone through have made us stronger, both in will and in the quality of our work together.”
Ahead of Tuesday’s verdict Le Pen had said several times she would not run for president if she had to wear a tag as she would not feel “totally free” to campaign.
Political opponents criticised Le Pen’s decision to run for president despite her guilty verdict.
“Her candidacy, despite her conviction, is yet another reversal that damages the French people’s trust in politics,” Othman Nasrou, secretary-general of the right-wing Republicans, told news agency AFP.
Former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal noted there was a “moral dimension to the decision to run despite one’s criminal record and a sentence for embezzlement of public funds”.
One of Le Pen’s main rivals for the presidency, ex-Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, said it was up to Le Pen to make the decision to run, but she had been convicted twice and would have to explain herself to the French people.
When asked what would happen if her appeal to the Court of Cassation did not go her way, Le Pen said: “We will see, and the French will be the judge, because the good news from this evening is they will be free to choose.”
She was reminded that she had said last year she would be cleared on appeal, and yet that had not happened. “Everyone can be mistaken,” she replied. “Let us hope that the Court of Cassation is not mistaken.”
