Marine Le Pen's Presidential Ambitions Hinge on Paris Court Ruling

PARIS — Marine Le Pen’s fourth and possibly final bid for the French presidency will likely be decided in a Paris courtroom Tuesday.

The 57-year-old veteran of the French far right will find out whether an appeals court will clear the way for her to run in next year’s presidential election — or leave in place a five-year electoral ban that could end the presidential ambitions she has spent more than a decade building toward.

Le Pen’s presidential dream has been in limbo ever since last year, when she was found guilty of embezzling funds from the European Parliament by having assistants work for her party, the National Rally, instead of on Parliament-related business.

She’ll need a three-judge panel to reverse or significantly reduce the ban so she can take part in the race to take over from French President Emmanuel Macron in spring 2027.

The ruling will land at a moment when Le Pen has never appeared closer to the presidency after three previous campaigns and two runoff defeats to Macron. But even if she is barred, it remains unclear whether her party’s chances would suffer: National Rally President Jordan Bardella, 30, has been tapped as her substitute and has polled at least as strongly in some early surveys.

While Le Pen has said she wouldn’t campaign if she were placed under house arrest and forced to wear an electronic ankle bracelet, on Wednesday she told an interviewer she would continue participating in politics whatever the outcome.

“It’s no longer up to me,” she said. “But I’ll continue to fight, and I’ll continue to be an activist. And if I’m only an activist, I’ll just be an activist.”

Le Pen is expected at Paris’ Palais de Justice, located in the medieval heart of the French capital, in the early afternoon. The presiding judge, Michèle Agi, is slated to start reading the verdict around 1:30 p.m.

Le Pen is not expected to make a statement immediately after leaving the courtroom. According to three National Rally officials, all of whom were granted anonymity to discuss an agenda still in flux, she will instead immediately go to her party’s headquarters in the west end of the French capital to meet with Bardella.

Bardella won’t be in the courtroom when the verdict is read. He’ll be in Strasbourg in the morning, as a member of the European Parliament, before heading back to Paris.

At 8 p.m., Le Pen is slated to appear on a national television primetime newscast for an interview that will constitute her first post-verdict remarks.

Age and experience

It is unclear whether the far right will have a better chance of winning the presidency with or without Le Pen.

Opinion polls indicate that Bardella is slightly more popular than Le Pen. A poll from the French research firm Ifop last month suggested he would win the first round of the election with as much as 37 percent of the vote, more than 15 points ahead of the nearest competitor in each of the scenarios tested.

While the poll also suggested Le Pen would win the first round, she topped out at 32 percent.

The first round of the election is scheduled for April 18. If no candidate secures more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two presidential hopefuls will square off in a second vote on May 2.

Whatever edge Bardella has in terms of popularity, he lacks in experience. His age and the fact that he’s untested add uncertainty around his ability to maintain his momentum over the next several months. It’s unclear if French voters are ready to trust a 30-year-old to run a nuclear power and Europe’s second-biggest economy.

For Le Pen, the question is more personal. If the electoral ban is upheld, it would be a devastating blow to a politician who has spent more than a decade trying to clean up the image of the party she inherited from her father and turn it into a mainstream force in French politics.

Now that the National Rally is closer than ever to power, she may not be the one who reaps the benefits.