Marine Le Pen said she and RN President Jordan Bardella would "very quickly" launch the party's presidential campaign together and she would appeal to France's highest court, the Cour de Cassation.
PARIS, July 7 (Xinhua) -- Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally (RN) party in the French parliament, announced on Tuesday that she will run in France's 2027 presidential election.
Speaking to French television channel TF1, Le Pen said: "So tonight, I am a candidate for the presidential election." She and RN President Jordan Bardella would "very quickly" launch the party's presidential campaign together, she added.
Le Pen also said she would appoint Bardella as prime minister if the RN can win the 2027 election. Bardella succeeded Le Pen as party president in 2022 and is widely regarded as her political heir.
Her announcement came hours after the Paris Court of Appeal upheld her conviction for embezzling public funds but reduced her sentence. Le Pen said she would appeal the ruling to France's highest court, the Cour de Cassation.
The appeal court upheld a lower court's finding that Le Pen had misused public funds to pay ghost European parliamentary assistants.
According to the Paris Court of Appeal, Le Pen was sentenced to three years in prison, including a two-year suspended sentence and one year to be served outside prison under electronic monitoring, and was fined 100,000 euros (114,000 U.S. dollars). Additionally, the court barred her from holding public office for 45 months, with 30 months of the ban suspended.
Under the verdict issued in late March 2025, her sentence included a five-year ban from holding public office, effective immediately, a four-year prison term, with two years served under electronic monitoring, and a fine of 100,000 euros.
With the period of ineligibility reduced on appeal, Le Pen remains eligible in principle to run in the 2027 presidential election.
Under French law, she has 10 days to appeal to the Cour de Cassation. According to French daily Le Monde, as the Paris Court of Appeal did not order the sentence to take immediate effect, filing an appeal would suspend its execution until the Cour de Cassation issues a final ruling. ■
