Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far right and a leading candidate to become the country’s next president, has been barred from running for public office for five years, after she and her party were convicted of embezzling millions of euros of European Union funds.
Ms. Le Pen, an anti-immigrant, populist politician, was also sentenced to four years in prison — with two years suspended and two that could be served under house arrest — and fined 100,000 euros, or about $108,000. She has consistently denied any wrongdoing and will appeal the verdict, which would put her jail sentence and the fine on hold.
But the ruling against Ms. Le Pen and her party, the National Rally, threatens to ruin her plans to run for the presidency in 2027.
Ms. Le Pen has spent years trying to soften her party’s image and move it into the mainstream by disavowing its antisemitic roots after expelling her father from the far-right party he once led.
Ms. Le Pen has run for the country’s highest office three times, and although she has yet to win she has succeeded in steadily increasing her share of the vote and expanding her party’s reach.
A French criminal court ruled that Ms. Le Pen played a “central role” in an illegal scheme by the party, when it was still called the National Front, to use the equivalent of almost $5 million of European Parliament funds for party expenses between 2004 and 2016.
The court found that the party used European Parliament funds to pay assistants to National Front members of the body for work that was unrelated to E.U. business. The judges rejected Ms. Le Pen’s argument that it was appropriate for the assistants to do party-related work.
Ms. Le Pen has called the case a political witch hunt. On Monday night, she told TF1 television that the ruling was an attempt to thwart her. “I’m not going to submit to a democratic denial so easily,” she said.
The ruling does not strip her of her seat in the National Assembly, but Ms. Le Pen will only be able to run for president in 2027 if she secures a more favorable ruling on appeal before the deadline to enter the race. But even a successful appeal could take some time.
The court also ruled that the National Rally had to pay a 2 million euro fine, half of which would be suspended. Twenty-three other people were convicted on charges related to the scheme to embezzle European Parliament funds.
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