PARIS, France: A French appeals court on July 7 confirmed Marine Le Pen's conviction for misusing European Union funds but reduced the length of her ban from running for public office. This means she could still run in the 2027 presidential election.

However, the court also gave her a three-year prison sentence, with two years suspended and one year to be served with an electronic ankle tag. This could make it harder for her to run a presidential campaign both politically and practically.

It is now up to Le Pen to decide whether she will run to become France's first far-right president in modern times. She is expected to appear in a prime-time TV interview on TF1 at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT), where she may announce her plans.

Le Pen had earlier said she would not want to campaign while being monitored with an electronic tag, as it could disrupt her campaign and damage her credibility. She has not yet confirmed her decision.

After leaving the courtroom, Le Pen smiled but did not speak. She then went to her party's headquarters, the anti-immigration National Rally (RN), to discuss her next steps.

In March 2025, Le Pen was found guilty of embezzlement and immediately banned from holding public office for 5 years, preventing her from making her planned fourth run for the presidency.

Under the July 7 appeal decision, she is banned from public office for 45 months, with 30 of those months suspended. Since she has already served 15 months of the ban imposed last year, she will be eligible to run in the April 2027 election.

This decision is likely to lead to strong debate within the RN, which has been preparing for two possible futures: one with Le Pen as the candidate and another with party president Jordan Bardella.

The electronic ankle tag is part of a reduced sentence, meaning she will not have to go to prison.

A judge will decide the details of the monitoring, including when she can leave her home and what time she must return at night. Weekend rules are usually stricter.

A judicial source said the tag could make a nationwide campaign more difficult, as she would need to return home every night, but it would not make campaigning impossible. She may also request to have the tag removed after a few months if she shows good behavior.

Opinion polls have regularly shown both Le Pen and Bardella as strong candidates to reach the final round of the presidential election. Some recent polls even suggest Bardella could do better than Le Pen in the first round.

Le Pen's conviction is based on accusations that members of the National Rally misused European Parliament funds intended for parliamentary assistants, using them to pay party staff in France. In 2025, judges said Le Pen had a key role in this scheme, a claim she has always denied.

The original ruling led to criticism from her supporters in France and abroad, who said the judiciary was interfering in politics. Her opponents argued that politicians must follow the same laws as everyone else.

Patrick Maisonneuve, a lawyer for the European Parliament, said it was important to remember that public money had been misused. He stated that this had been claimed for years and had now been confirmed twice—first by a lower court and then by the appeals court.