(Updated: )
Editor's note: The story is being updated with the latest details on the verdict.
A French court on March 31 found Marine Le Pen, one of the leaders of the far-right National Rally party (RN), guilty of embezzling EU funds and banned her from running for public office "with immediate effect."
The far-right leader was barred from running for office for five years, seemingly scuttling her hopes of running for president in 2027. Le Pen was also sentenced to four years imprisonment, with two years suspended and two in home detention. She was also ordered to pay a 100,000-euro ($108,200) fine.
Le Pen, eight RN members of the European Parliament, and 12 assistants were found guilty of misusing European Parliament money to pay staff working for the RN between 2004 and 2016, France24 reported. Twenty-four of Le Pen's party colleagues have been charged in the case.
Prosecutors requested a 10-year prison sentence and a ban to run for office for five years, Euronews reported.
Le Pen chairs the RN in the French parliament's lower house and unsuccessfully ran for the presidency in 2012, 2017, and 2022, ending up in the runoff in the latter two cases but losing to Emmanuel Macron.
"I absolutely don’t feel I have committed the slightest irregularity, the slightest illegal move," the far-right leader told the court, according to France24. She claimed that prosecutors were "only interested" in thwarting her presidential ambitions.
Le Pen's lawyer said she would appeal the ruling, though that is unlikely to have an immediate impact on the ban on running for office, the Guardian reported.
Before Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Le Pen openly expressed her admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said she did not believe Russia's annexation of Crimea was illegal, and her party took a 9-billion-euro loan from a Russian bank in 2014 despite sanctions.
Le Pen and her party sought to cast away their pro-Kremlin rhetoric after 2022, denouncing Russian aggression and praising Ukrainian defenders. At the same time, Le Pen has opposed more decisive steps in support of Kyiv, such as the supply of SCALP missiles or the deployment of French peacekeepers on the ground.
The RN has gathered broad support over the past few years, becoming the single largest party in the parliament's lower house and a leading opposition force.
The Kyiv Independent news desk
