Marine Le Pen to run for presidency and appeal against conviction in France’s highest court

The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has announced she will run for the presidency in 2027 and will lodge an appeal to France’s highest court over her sentence to wear an electronic ankle tag for the embezzlement of European parliament funds.

“Tonight, I am a candidate in the presidential election,” Le Pen, 57, told TF1 television on Tuesday night.

Earlier on Tuesday a French court of appeal had upheld Le Pen’s conviction for playing a central role in orchestrating a fake-jobs scam of unprecedented size and duration. She was found guilty of having played a key part in the embezzlement of more than €2.8m in European parliament funds and funnelling the money into her party in Paris between 2004 and 2016.

Although the court shortened Le Pen’s ban on running for elected office, effectively allowing her to run in the spring, it also handed her a three-year jail term, with two years suspended. During the other year, it said, she must wear ​an electronic ankle tag for monitoring, restricting the hours she could leave her home.

Le Pen, who heads the anti-immigration the National Rally (RN) party, had previously suggested she would not run for president if her movements were restricted.