French National Rally leader Marine Le Pen was sentenced to prison and is banned from running in national elections for five years, a French court ruled Monday.
Le Pen was found guilty of embezzling European Union funds, barring the ascendant conservative figure from mounting a challenge in the 2027 presidential election, according to multiple sources. She will avoid serving the four-year sentence in prison, but the ruling deals a critical blow to the National Rally as they scramble to find a new candidate.
Parisian court president Bénédicte de Perthuis said that Le Pen’s actions were a “serious and lasting attack on the rules of democratic life in Europe, but especially in France,” according to CNN. She will also have to pay a fine equal to $350,000.
Le Pen allegedly misused $4.8 million in EU funding that was earmarked for assistants in the European Parliament, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Jordan Bardella, president of National Rally and Le Pen’s presumptive successor in the presidential run, condemned the ruling.
The right-wing candidate was leading the polls for the presidency in March, with Le Pen netting 37% of the prospective vote, a ten point increase to her first round score in 2022, according to Le Journal du Dimanche.
“Today, it is not only Marine Le Pen who is being unjustly condemned: it is French democracy that is being executed,” Bardella said on X Monday.
Other European conservative leaders, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, voiced support for Le Pen in the wake of the ruling.
Le Pen had previously described a scenario where she was barred from running for elections as a “political death,” according to The Associated Press.
Le Pen’s National Rally won over one-third of the vote in the first round of the 2024 assembly elections, but ultimately was defeated by New Popular Front, a left-wing coalition, in the second round.
The French National Assembly did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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