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French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has been cleared to contest the 2027 presidential election, but a court has ordered her to serve part of her sentence with an electronic ankle tag.
The ruling has kept her presidential hopes alive but raised new questions about whether she can campaign freely ahead of France’s 2027 election.
An appeals court in Paris found the 57-year-old guilty in a fake-jobs scandal linked to the European Parliament but reduced her earlier sentence.
The court banned Le Pen from holding public office for 15 months and sentenced her to one year under electronic monitoring.
The ban, which dates back to March 2025, is expected to have expired this year, making her eligible in principle to contest the presidential election scheduled for April and May 2027.
However, Le Pen has warned that the ankle tag could limit her ability to campaign across the country.
“When you’re a presidential candidate, you need to be completely free to move around.”
“I can’t depend on a magistrate to allow me to go to a rally,” she said during a television interview last week.
Le Pen left the courtroom with her head bowed and is expected to announce whether she will run or hand the candidacy to National Rally president Jordan Bardella.
Her lawyer, Rodolphe Bosselut, welcomed part of the ruling.
“We note a considerable shift in the sentences, particularly with regards to the ban from office, which for us is an extremely important point,” he said.
The case centres on allegations that Le Pen and members of her National Rally party diverted European Parliament funds between 2004 and 2016 to pay party staff working in France.
Le Pen has denied wrongdoing, insisting her party acted in “complete good faith” and describing the prosecution as a political “witch hunt.”
Prosecutors argued that after taking over the party in 2011, she had expanded and formalised the misuse of EU funds.
Despite the legal battle, opinion polls continue to place Le Pen and the National Rally among the frontrunners ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
