With the 2027 presidential election on the horizon, the outcome of the trial could determine whether Marine Le Pen — a three-time presidential candidate — will be able to run, or whether her current ban from political office will remain in place.
Marine Le Pen returned to court in Paris on Tuesday with her political future hanging in the balance.
The figurehead of France’s far-right appeared before the Paris Court of Appeal to begin two days of questioning in a high-stakes case over the misuse of European Union funds, a case which could derail her bid for the 2027 presidential race.
Convicted last year of misappropriating EU money, Le Pen was handed a five-year ban from holding public office, two years of house arrest under electronic monitoring and a further two-year suspended prison sentence.
She is appealing the verdict, arguing that any irregularities were the result of unitary errors rather than deliberate wrongdoing.
The case centres on the use of funds allocated by the European Parliament to pay parliamentary assistants.
Prosecutors argue that some staff members were working primarily for the party rather than EU duties, a practice French investigators have described as a "structured scheme" spanning more than a decade.
Investigators also found that some of the funds were even used to pay for Le Pen’s personal assistant and bodyguard.
Le Pen, seemingly composed, and speaking in a steady voice did not deny that individual situations may, in hindsight, raise questions, but firmly rejected the idea that there was any "organised system" designed to circumvent the rules.
Marine Le Pen strongly defended the practice of sharing parliamentary assistants among several politicians, a key issue in the case.
Confronted with internal emails discussing meetings about the recruitment of assistants, Le Pen said the staffing arrangements were justified by the wide range of tasks required to keep the party functioning.
She acknowledged that some assistants were “shared” between several elected officials for organisational reasons, regardless of what their contracts specified.
Over ten years, she said, the European Parliament “did not reproach us” for having assistants working for more than one person. According to her, the institution never challenged this organisational model.
The former National Rally president denied resolutely any intention of committing a crime, reiterating that European Parliament officials “never alerted” them of a potential breach of the rules.
“These facts were a succession of cases which, I believe, are very different from one another and which lasted, as far as I am concerned, over twelve years,” she said.
During the hearing, the court also examined an internal email sent by former MEP Jean-Luc Schaffhauser to Wallerand de Saint-Just, then-treasurer of the party.
Citing European Parliament rules, Schaffhauser warned that what the party was asking elected officials to do amounted to “fake jobs”, a French legal term referring to publicly funded positions that do not correspond to the work officially declared.
“I think Marine knows all this very well,” de Saint-Just replied at the time.
Le Pen told the court she had never been made aware of the exchange.
“I cannot tell you anything about that email, I was not informed of it,” she said, adding that had she received it, she would not have shown “the same nonchalance” as her former treasurer.
She accused several former colleagues of lying or giving false testimony, claiming they were motivated by resentment after being pushed out of the party.
She also attempted to downplay her own responsibility for the internal management of the party’s European parliamentary group, noting that most of the "political control", up until 2014 was carried out by her late father and founder of the National Rally, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Since the appeal trial opened last week, Le Pen’s defence has largely centred on the argument that any wrongdoing was unintentional rather than an organised scheme to embezzle EU funds.