Marine Le Pen may run for President, but with an ankle bracelet, decides Justice in France

The logistical difficulty of running a campaign monitored by the courts could make Le Pen give up her candidacy to Jordan Bardella, president and most popular name of her party, Reunião Nacional (RN). However, hours later, in an interview with public broadcaster TF1, Le Pen declared that she will be the party's presidential candidate for the fourth time. And without the ankle bracelet.

"I won't change my mind," he said. "We, Jordan Bardella and I, are going to start this presidential campaign very soon", stated the RN leader. According to her, a "balanced, coherent and solid" plate

The Paris Court of Appeal ordered three years in prison for Le Pen, with probation for two years and use of the electronic device for one year; also fixed his ineligibility for 45 months, but with suspension of the sentence for 30 months, leaving a balance that has already been served; and maintained the fine of €100,000 (R$580,000).

On TV, Le Pen declared herself innocent and said she would try a new appeal, this time to the Court of Cassation, a measure she had discarded before the verdict. According to Le Pen, upon filing the appeal, the decision to be monitored would also be suspended.

In 2025, she was convicted of using €1.4 million (R$8.1 million) in European Parliament resources to pay her party officials.

In testimony to the Court of Appeals at the beginning of the year, Le Pen denied having maintained any type of fraudulent scheme, but admitted mistakes in the management of her parliamentary assistants. She was an MEP from 2004 to 2017.

There is a provision for sentence reduction in French justice in case of good behavior. At best, this would leave Le Pen without her ankle bracelet from January onwards. The tone he adopted in TF1, however, was to obtain release or even acquittal before that, in the higher court.

Despite the confidence shown in the speech, the now candidate will have months of legal battle before any definitive decision is made. Le Pen preferred, however, to assume a campaign tone: "The French will have the final say".

In a statement published shortly after the verdict, the Court of Appeal stated that it took into account "the voter's freedom of choice." He further considered that, "at the time of the facts, [the ineligibility penalties] were not mandatory".

With a myriad of candidates, the election in April 2027 will mark the end of the Emmanuel Macron era. Le Pen will run for the fourth time and with much greater popularity than she had in 2017 and 2022, when she was surpassed only by Macron - after two terms, the French president can no longer run for office.

"It is healthy for democracy if the President of the Republic does not comment on judicial decisions; therefore, I will follow this line of conduct, even more so when abroad," said Macron, on a visit to Syria, marked by explosions in Damascus.

The youngest daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, a Holocaust denier and creator of the National Front, a meeting of French ultranationalist currents in 1972, Marine Le Pen has spent the last ten years seeking to make the party palatable to the average French voter.

Along the way, he removed his father, renamed the party and, in 2022, even without reaching the presidency, he formed an extreme right-wing alliance of 143 deputies in the National Assembly, the largest group in the current French Parliament.

Bardella, 30, president of the National Meeting, is the most appealing face of the party. Fluent on social media, he defends the typical flags of the European ultra-right, but finds time to frequent social columns. He is the boyfriend of an Italian aristocrat, Carolina de Bourbon-Two Sicilies, who is also an influencer.

Observers see the relationship as an attempt to soften Bardella's political face, in a kind of reissue of the effort undertaken by Le Pen in the last decade. "I think that this political duo that we have formed can really change things. It can represent a new breath of fresh air for our country and change the daily lives of the French", declared the parliamentarian, reiterating that Bardella will be nominated for the position of prime minister if she is elected next year.

The secretary general of the Republicans, Othman Nasrou, said that Le Pen took French democracy "hostage" by deciding to run in the presidential elections despite the conviction. Gabriel Attal, from Renaissance, who also put his name forward for the 2027 race, stated that there is "a moral dimension" to Le Pen's decision to run "while having a criminal record and a prison sentence."

Édouard Philippe, another former prime minister and presidential candidate, stated that the choice is Le Pen's and that she owes her choice to the French. Leader of Unsubmissive France, Jean-Luc Mélenchon asked voters to "free the country from RN". “We are going to expel them all,” he wrote on social media.