Marine Le Pen appeal: Prosecutors call for election ban to be upheld

Prosecutors in the appeal case against Rassemblement National leader Marine Le Pen are calling for her to receive four years in prison and a five-year ban on running for office.

The sentences against Ms Le Pen were requested in Paris on February 3, as part of the appeal hearings against the leader and the misuse of funds in the European parliamentary assistants case.

It comes after Ms Le Pen was sentenced in March 2025 to four years in prison (of which two were suspended), a €100,000 fine, and five years of ineligibility for office with immediate effect. The sentences were then paused as the case went to the Cour d’appel (Court of Appeal).

The new requests for Ms Le Pen to be banned from running for office centre on whether the ban should be applied with immediate effect or not, because the next presidential elections do not take place until 2027. 

The Cour d’appel does not have to follow the prosecution’s requests. It is set to make a decision on the case before the summer. 

Ms Le Pen could escalate the decision by the Cour d’appel to the Cour de cassation (Supreme Court), whose eventual decision would be expected before the next presidential elections in 2027.

‘Working for RN, paid by Europe’

The case centres on the extent of Ms Le Pen’s knowledge and involvement in using European Parliament funds to pay party employees between 2004 and 2016, during a time when the Rassemblement National (RN) was struggling financially due to poor election results. 

This means that while the staff were working solely for the RN, they were being “paid by Europe”, prosecutors have said. They also claim that this system was “professionalised” by Marine Le Pen following her succession as leader of the party (following on from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen) in 2011.

One of the two prosecutors in the case, chief prosecutor Thierry Ramonatxo, has argued that Ms Le Pen was fully aware and “closely informed” of the alleged events.

"She signed the [employees’] contracts. She cannot tell us that she was unaware. She was a lawyer and a trained jurist,” he said. “She played a central role as organiser. She was the one who set the rules for internal operations.” 

“Marine Le Pen was the instigator, following in her father's footsteps, of a system that allowed €1.4 million to be embezzled on behalf of the party," said co-prosecutor Stéphane Madoz-Blanchet, who said that Ms Le Pen had aimed to "delegitimise" judiciary powers and shed doubt on the judge.

“Elective office is not a refuge from the law, but a pinnacle of responsibility,” he said.

‘Not a grey area’

Of the 25 people already convicted in relation to the case, 12 have appealed. The Cour d’appel prosecution has also called for these existing convictions to be upheld and confirmed. These include a six month suspended sentence for RN MP Timothée Houssin, and three years in prison (two suspended) for former RN treasurer Wallerand de Saint-Just.

A lawyer representing the European Parliament, Bérénice de Warren, has denied the defendant’s assertion that there are “grey areas” in the European Parliament's rules on parliamentary assistants. 

“We are not in a grey area, we are in a forbidden zone,” she said.

In her defence, Marine Le Pen has always denied that there was any “intention” to commit an offence, and said that she was acting in “good faith”. She has blamed the actions on disorganisation rather than intentional breaking of the law.

On January 21, she said: “Was it linked to the disorganisation [of the party]? Perhaps. Did any of [the actors] feel they were committing a crime? I am convinced they did not. Did the party intentionally commit a crime? I don't think so.”