Paris appeal court convicts 12 over National Rally staffing and cuts Le Pen's ban to 45 months

On 7 July 2026 the correctional appeals chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal, the division that handles economic and financial offences, delivered its judgment in the case known as the parliamentary assistants of the Front National. According to the court's own press release issued that day, it convicted all 12 defendants who had appealed, valued the misappropriation of public funds at the expense of the European Parliament at 2.8 million euros, and ordered the defendants to compensate that financial loss. The judgment runs to 339 pages.

The court found that an arrangement had been set up so that the European Parliament paid the salaries of assistants to Front National members of the European Parliament, later the Rassemblement National, while those staff did work unconnected to any parliamentary mandate and in reality worked for the national party. Five defendants were convicted of misappropriation of public funds in their capacity as members of the European Parliament: Louis Aliot, Nicolas Bay, Bruno Gollnish, Fernand Le Rachinel and Marine Le Pen. Four were convicted of complicity in that offence, including Marine Le Pen in her separate capacity as party president, the then treasurer Wallerand de Saint Just, a third party payer, and the Rassemblement National itself. Four former assistants were convicted of handling the proceeds. The party was additionally convicted of habitual handling by a legal person. Sentences ranged from six months suspended imprisonment to three years with two years suspended, alongside fines and additional penalties including ineligibility. The court acquitted for certain periods where it held the elements of the offence were not made out.

The reasoning is the part that will matter beyond France. The court held that the French penal code offence of misappropriation of public funds, article 432-15, applies to a member of the European Parliament because such a member is a person charged with a public service mission, that European funds are public funds, and that the money is given to the member only to recruit and pay assistants within the limits the Parliament allows. It examined guilt contract by contract, 28 contracts in all, and found the defendants knew the contracts did not match reality. The charge period ran from 2004 to 2016. The Parliament was the sole civil party.

On sentence, the court called the conduct grave, noting it continued for more than 11 years despite reminders from the Parliament about its own rules, that it created an inequality with other political parties, and that it was committed by elected representatives from whom total probity is expected. Against that it found there had been no personal enrichment by the members themselves, that only some of the assistants recruited were involved, and that the national party alone benefited.

Marine Le Pen received three years imprisonment with two suspended, the firm portion arranged as home detention under electronic surveillance, with the practical terms left to the sentence enforcement judge. Her ineligibility was set at 45 months with 30 months suspended. The court reasoned that ineligibility was not mandatory for offences committed at that time, that it had to weigh proportionality against the freedom to stand for election and the voter's freedom of choice, and that the ban already running since 31 March 2025, when the first instance court ordered provisional execution, had repaired the breach of probity to a degree compatible with fundamental guarantees. At first instance 25 people were convicted and one acquitted.

The political effect was immediate. Le Pen told French television the same evening, as Euronews reported, "Tonight, I am a candidate in the presidential election". She also said she would campaign without an electronic bracelet, because an appeal to the Cour de cassation, which the judgment says may be lodged within ten clear days, suspends execution. Writing in The Conversation on 8 July 2026, Luc Rouban of Sciences Po argued that no cassation ruling is likely before the 2027 election, and that the later such a ruling lands, the harder it becomes to unpick a candidacy. The first round is scheduled for April 2027.

The figures do not sit neatly together. The appeal court's 2.8 million euros covers only the 28 contracts it retained. The Associated Press, reporting on 11 February 2026 when the month long appeal hearing closed, described roughly 2.9 million euros misused between 2004 and 2016, and quoted a prosecutor saying public money had been siphoned off drop by drop until it formed a river. Prosecutors had asked for a five year ban and a year of house arrest. What remains unknown is the detail of the penalties for each convicted person, which the court placed in an annexed table rather than the communique, whether the Cour de cassation will rule before the election, and how much of the 2.8 million the Parliament will actually recover.