Euro-Lawfare? France Bans Nationalist Candidate From Running for Office

A French court banned the leader of France’s conservative nationalist party—Marine Le Pen—from running for public office for the next five years after her embezzlement conviction. 

Le Pen lost the 2022 French presidential election to current President Emmanuel Macron. The sentence, which also includes a partially suspended four-year prison sentence, disqualifies her from running for president again in 2027.

The French ruling in some ways echoes an effort by opponents of now-President Donald Trump to ban him from the ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court sided with plaintiffs who insisted Trump didn’t qualify for the state’s 2024 ballot because he was an “insurrectionist.” The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned the ruling, thus short-circuiting efforts to ban Trump from other state ballots. Trump was never convicted or indicted for insurrection.

The French court found Le Pen and more than 20 other members of the National Rally party used millions of euros in European Union funding that was earmarked for assistants helping lawmakers in the European Parliament with their work. Judges said Le Pen and colleagues used the money to pay party staffers who weren’t involved in work for the EU Parliament, BBC reported. 

Le Pen denied the charges. She testified it was appropriate for the assistants to perform other party-related work because they were political aides, and not direct employees of the European Parliament, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Banning Le Pen from public office takes effect immediately and is not pending appeal, under the judges’ orders. However, her prison sentence will be pending appeal.

Last year, prosecutors argued to the court that a prison sentence or fine would not be enough and called for the court to make her ineligible to run for office for five years. They argued that suspension from the ballot should not be pending appeal.