A ticket to the Élysée: Is Lady Justice reviving Le Pen’s presidential ambitions? Analysis by Artem Kirpichenok

The most significant development in French politics has been the announcement by French right-wing leader Marine Le Pen that she will run for president after a court upheld her appeal against a conviction for the misuse of European Union funds.

To recall, in March 2025, a lower court found Le Pen guilty of allowing members of her party's Paris headquarters staff to be formally employed as parliamentary assistants to National Rally (Rassemblement National, RN) members of the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg, while being paid from EU funds despite not carrying out those duties.

The court sentenced Marine Le Pen to a five-year ban on holding public office and four years in prison, with two years suspended, effectively ruling her out of the presidential race. The case against Le Pen attracted widespread attention, with then-Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán among those who publicly voiced their support. “Donald Trump, Matteo Salvini and now Marine Le Pen. All proud patriots, and now all of them under attack by the judiciary. Keep on fighting, Madame Le Pen!” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

For her part, Le Pen argued that her party had become the victim of a “witch hunt” and, together with 10 other defendants in the case, filed an appeal. During the second trial, she denied that National Rally had operated any scheme aimed at misappropriating EU funds and maintained that she had acted “entirely in good faith.”

As a result, the original four-year prison sentence was reduced to a two-year suspended sentence and one year of house arrest, while the 30-month ban on participating in political life was lifted. Explaining its decision, the appellate court said its objective was “to assess the sentence in light of a possible infringement of the right to stand for election,” adding that “the freedom of voters to choose — an essential condition of democratic elections — must be taken into account.”

Following this reasoning, the court effectively reduced the period during which Marine Le Pen was barred from holding public office to 15 months (out of a total of 45 months, with 30 months suspended), thereby allowing her to run for president of the Fifth Republic. The 15-month period has been counted from the lower court’s ruling in March of last year.

The appellate court’s verdict can undoubtedly be viewed as a significant victory for the French right. However, a suspended sentence and house arrest are far from freedom. Electronic house arrest requires the individual to leave home only during pre-approved hours and to visit only authorized locations. While it is possible to request exemptions, there is no guarantee that such requests will be granted. All of this clearly creates serious obstacles for anyone seeking to conduct a political campaign. Nevertheless, Marine Le Pen has announced that she will file a further appeal with France’s highest court and, pending its ruling, will not be required to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet during the election campaign. “Today, I am a candidate in the presidential election,” she declared.

Meanwhile, French political analysts assessing Marine Le Pen’s electoral prospects have concluded that National Rally’s greatest asset may not be Le Pen herself, but the party’s 30-year-old president, Jordan Bardella, who has remained closely at her side. For several months now, the two have presented themselves as a unified team: Le Pen as the presidential candidate and Bardella as the party’s prospective prime minister.

In France, they are already being described as a “winning tandem” that is “held together by shared convictions and years of working side by side.” National Rally lawmaker Philippe Ballard echoed this view, saying: “The idea of a tandem is more familiar in the United States, but I think it is a good one. We will know in advance who could become the next prime minister. That is healthier for our democracy.”

Not everyone agrees, however, as the concept of a political tandem is not part of the French political tradition. In France, the president is one of the most powerful figures in the political system, exercising broad executive authority and unprecedented influence over foreign policy. As an adviser to the conservative Republicans party put it, “We do not vote for tandems here. This is not the United States.”

On the other hand, according to Bruno Cautrès, a political scientist at the Institute of Political Studies, such a partnership has clear strategic logic: “In theory, this choice offers many advantages. A man and a woman, an older and a younger figure; she has a long history within the party behind her, while he has had a meteoric rise... From the perspective of political communication, this opens up opportunities, as they can appeal to different categories of voters.”

At the same time, polls show that any candidate from the National Rally — whether Le Pen or Bardella — would easily win the first round of the election, scheduled for April 18, 2027. However, forecasts for the second round are less encouraging: according to some estimates, victory could go to centrist candidate and former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe. Nevertheless, whatever the predictions may be, the final verdict will ultimately be delivered by time and history — each in their own way and according to their own judgment.