French politics are in upheaval after far-right leader Marine Le Pen was disqualified from the 2027 presidential contest.

In a politically combustible decision that has dashed her ambitions of regaining the presidency in 2027, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was convicted guilty of embezzling European Union funds and prohibited from competing for political office for five years.

Le Pen, the leading candidate for the next election, was also sentenced by a Paris court to four years in prison with two years suspended, to be served under house arrest, and a €100,000 ($108,000) fine. She has the right to appeal, but unless another court reverses the prohibition, it will remain in effect.

Her party, National Rally (RN), was found guilty of embezzling €4.1 million and was compelled to pay €2 million in fines.

Le Pen's acts constituted a "severe and prolonged attack on the rules of democratic life in Europe, but notably in France," according to Bénédicte de Perthuis, the court's presiding judge. Le Pen's immediate ban on running for office, she claimed, was linked to "democratic popular anger" that would arise from electing someone with an embezzlement conviction.

However, it appears that the decision itself will cause a great deal of unrest. Le Pen's protégé Jordan Bardella, who took over as president of RN, stated that French democracy was being executed and that Le Pen was not the only one "being unjustly persecuted."

Le Pen's niece, Marion Maréchal, who represents a competing far-right party in the European Parliament, claimed that her aunt had "guided our side on the route to triumph." She gets condemned because this is her only transgression.

Le Pen was calm and collected when she arrived at the court on Monday to meet supporters, but as the court president spent almost an hour outlining the embezzlement plan, she became more angry and shook her head.

As a result, the question comes up only in this criminal case, which renders its verdict "in the name of the French people." The presiding judge stated that the court must not disregard the need to find a social consensus.

De Perthuis added that when deciding on a sentence, her fellow judges had considered the "two risks": the possibility that someone convicted of embezzlement might be elected to a political post and the "great risk to public order" that would result from barring a likely presidential contender from running.

After being invited by court officials to hear her complete sentence, Le Pen departed the courthouse and declined to speak to reporters when she got to her party's Paris office.

The Fifth Republic was shocked.

Le Pen's National Rally (RN) party and over 20 of its members were found guilty of utilizing funds from the European Parliament to pay employees who were actually employed by RN in France, which was shocking to the Fifth Republic. Twelve assistants and nine European Parliament members, including Le Pen, were convicted.

The court found that Le Pen had misused European Union funding for her own political party by utilizing four party personnel as parliamentary assistants, including her bodyguard and personal assistant.

The court found that Le Pen and her associates stole almost €4 million over more than 11 years.

Le Pen's hopes of winning the Élysée Palace on her fourth try in 2027—when President Emmanuel Macron would not be eligible to run for a third consecutive term—have been dashed by the ruling.

Le Pen used the same wording that US President Donald Trump used to describe legal actions that targeted him when he called the lawsuit against her a "witchhunt."

Following the ruling, her right-wing European allies also swiftly came to her support.

Following the conviction, Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary and a leading proponent of socially conservative policies in Europe, wrote on X, "Je suis Marine." Matteo Salvini and the Italian far-right leader criticized the ruling.

A court ruling to rerun the Romanian presidential election, in which a far-right candidate unexpectedly won, is one of the perceived attacks on far-right leaders in Europe that the Trump administration has denounced.

Administration officials have openly supported far-right organizations in Europe, including as the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Germany, most notably US Vice President JD Vance.

The Kremlin claimed that Le Pen's conviction demonstrated that Europe was "trampling on democratic standards" shortly after her sentencing started.

Even former Macron ministers expressed outrage at the prospect of her losing her right to run for government during her trial.

In November, Gerald Darmanin, the current French Justice Minister, wrote on X that denying her the right to vote would be "profoundly upsetting."

The conviction of Le Pen is the most recent in a string of high-profile French politicians who have engaged in financial irregularities. Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president, is presently awaiting punishment for influence peddling and corruption.

In 2021, Sarkozy was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling and was sentenced to three years in jail, with two of those years suspended. He was had to wear a GPS-tracking ankle band but was spared jail time.