Brussels comes back to bite Le Pen

The far-right leader could see her presidential hopes crushed in an embezzlement case triggered by a complaint at the European Parliament.

By VICTOR GOURY-LAFFONT
in Paris

^{Illustration by Natália Delgado/POLITICO}

Marine Le Pen built her political career by trashing the EU, and Brussels is now poised to take revenge by blocking her path to France’s presidency.

On Tuesday, at an appeals court in Paris, the leader of the far-right National Rally will learn whether her dream of standing in next year’s election is over, just as polls place her party as a clear favorite to win the Elysée.

If her ambitions to run France are dashed, it will be thanks to an embezzlement complaint originating more than a decade ago in the European Parliament — an EU institution that she once condemned as “the blob that gobbles everything up.”

Le Pen and her allies first stood trial in 2024 on accusations that they swindled European taxpayers out of an estimated €4.5 million between 2004 and 2016 by hiring assistants who spent most of their time on domestic party politics rather than their official European Parliament duties. 

Though the codefendants denied any wrongdoing and tried to frame the proceedings as a political witch hunt, the court was unconvinced in the face of the prosecution’s compelling case. Evidence included a text from one of the accused asking if he could be introduced to the MEP he was purportedly working for several months after his contract started, and the revelation that another assistant exchanged just one text message with the MEP they worked for over the course of their eight-month contract. 

The 56-year-old former MEP was found guilty and handed a five-year ban on running for public office. The punishment effectively knocked her out of the 2027 race to replace term-limited Emmanuel Macron, which she was leading according to most polls.

Le Pen immediately appealed, and during fast-tracked legal proceedings earlier this year she conceded — after months of proclaiming her innocence — that she may have unwittingly broken the law. Her legal team then challenged the initial verdict on technical legal grounds and argued that the ban is disproportionate.

Despite the change in strategy, Le Pen’s prospects on Tuesday still look dim. She appeared to lose some of her fighting spirit during the appeal’s final days and said she would not mount a presidential bid if the ban is upheld or she is sentenced to wear an electronic ankle bracelet.  

“It’s no longer up to me,” Le Pen said of her presidential aspirations in an interview with LCI television on Wednesday. “But I’ll continue to fight. I’ll continue to be an activist. And if I’m just an activist, I’ll just be an activist.”

Fortunately for the National Rally, its popular president Jordan Bardella is waiting in the wings and doing even better in the polls than Le Pen did. That means the EU still faces the possibility that the next president of France, the bloc’s second-largest economy, could be a far-right politician who seeks to fundamentally weaken Brussels. 

Brussels strikes back 

European Parliament director-general Didier Klethi took the witness stand on Jan. 15 to offer testimony that may have sealed Le Pen’s fate. 

Inside the gold-adorned confines of the main room of the Paris Court of Justice, where more than 80 years earlier Philippe Pétain was convicted of treason for collaborating with Nazi Germany, Klethi accused Le Pen and her party of systematically using EU funds to pay for assistants whose real purpose was to serve the party apparatus in France. 

“Under no circumstances may these funds be used to finance a political party,” Klethi told the court with a light Belgian accent that immediately revealed his affiliation with Brussels. “That was strictly prohibited.” 

At the outset of the appeals trial, Le Pen told the court that “if a crime had been committed … so be it,” but insisted that “she had never felt like we had committed even the slightest offense.”  

Le Pen argued that she had always been transparent with Parliament, but Parliament failed to properly warn her about the restrictions on assistant work. 

This was a significant change compared to the first trial, during which she firmly rejected any notion that she may have committed a crime and framed the proceedings exclusively as a political witch hunt.  

Le Pen also argued that assistants’ work for the party took place in addition to — not instead of — their parliamentary duties, citing her then-chief of staff as an example.  

Klethi, however, countered that Le Pen’s later line of defense showed she must have known the rules all along. 

“The rules were well known, since Ms. Le Pen initially replied: Move along, nothing to see here,” Klethi told the court. “Then she said that it was done in spare time, which reassured us and shows that she had a good understanding of the matter.” 

From Frexit to pragmatism 

Until 2017, Le Pen advocated for France to leave the European Union and scrap the euro in favor of a return to the franc. 

She has since scrapped those proposals to avoid alienating older and moderate voters. But Le Pen and her party still view Brussels with hostility. In an interview with POLITICO last month, Bardella called the EU “obsolete.” 

“Despite its recent ambiguities, the [National Rally’s] platform remains deeply rooted in euroskepticism,” said Gilles Ivaldi, a political scientist at Sciences Po who specializes in the French far right. “At its core, it still relies on the traditional opposition between ‘globalists’ and ‘patriots.’” 

Losing to those “globalists” would be particularly painful for Le Pen, but the party may be preparing for defeat. Bardella’s public appearances, including a recent visit to Poland, had the air of a presidential campaign.

And though Bardella now faces legal issues similar to those dogging his mentor, Le Pen said in an interview in June that “it’s a relief for me that, if I’m prevented from standing, he could stand in my place.” 

Two of the defendants, who spoke with POLITICO on condition of anonymity to avoid interfering with legal proceedings, expressed pessimism that the appeals court would rule in their favor. 

One of them, an elected official who would be barred from seeking reelection if the ban is upheld, said:  “It may be time to explore new professional horizons.”