French opposition leader Marine Le Pen’s appeal trial begins on Tuesday, 13 January, and will determine whether the leading right-wing politician will be eligible to run for the presidency in 2027. Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigration National Rally party, was convicted of embezzlement in March 2025 and subsequently barred from holding public office for five years.
Prosecutors first requested that Le Pen be found guilty in November 2024. According to the allegations, she, her party, and 24 other individuals—including current and former French lawmakers—illegally used European Parliament funds between 2004 and 2016 to pay parliamentary assistants for party-related work rather than EU duties. Le Pen and her co-defendants have consistently denied the charges.
The severity of Le Pen’s conviction is widely regarded by her supporters as disproportionate to the offence she allegedly committed and has been described as a ‘political witch hunt’ by several right-wing leaders, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and US President Donald Trump. Following the conviction in March, Trump publicly urged French authorities to ‘FREE MARINE LE PEN’ and drew parallels between her case and his own legal battles ahead of the 2024 US presidential election.
According to three lawmakers from Le Pen’s party who spoke to POLITICO Brussels on condition of anonymity, the defence team intends to pursue a far more restrained and technical strategy than during the initial trial. At that stage, the National Rally’s legal approach focused largely on winning the court of public opinion—a strategy that ultimately backfired, as defence lawyers struggled to rebut particularly damaging evidence, including testimony from an assistant who admitted he had never met the MEP he was supposedly working for.
In the appeal, defence teams for Le Pen and her co-defendants plan to examine the ruling line by line, searching for legal inconsistencies and procedural flaws. They also intend to tailor arguments more precisely to individual defendants, seeking to undermine the prosecution’s claim that party headquarters systematically assigned parliamentary assistants to serve party leadership rather than carry out parliamentary work.
At the core of Le Pen’s appeal will be the argument that the sanction itself—effectively preventing a leading presidential contender from standing in a nationwide election—is grossly disproportionate to the offence for which she was convicted.
National Rally continues to state that Le Pen will run for the presidency in 2027 despite the conviction. Polling, however, suggests that the party would not be significantly weakened even if the appeal were to fail. Her potential successor, 30-year-old Jordan Bardella, is currently among the most popular politicians in France. As Hungarian Conservative reported in November last year, Bardella would prevail in every projected 2027 scenario, securing around 35–36 per cent in the first round and defeating all rivals in a run-off, according to a survey examining all possible outcomes. A separate poll conducted earlier in November by Elabe likewise placed Bardella in the lead, with support ranging between 35 and 37.5 per cent. According to the same results, despite her conviction, Marine Le Pen remains the second most popular presidential contender, with 34 per cent support.
Related articles:
