Marine Le Pen is permitted to run for president by a French court, but she is required to wear an electronic tag.

 A Paris court upholds Marine Le Pen's embezzlement conviction - but clears the path for her to run in the 2027 French presidential election

 Le Pen received a three-year prison sentence from judges on the Court of Appeal, two of which were suspended and one with an electronic tag. The hard-right leader received a four-year sentence after the trial in 2025, with two years suspended and the remaining two served with a tag. 

She was also banned from running for public office for five years, but that has been reduced to 15 months today. This means that Le Pen can technically run for president of France next year, but she has stated that she will not do so under these circumstances, according to our digital Europe editor. The appeal verdict of today was supposed to set the stage for the presidential race. We must now wait for an unambiguous announcement from Marine Le Pen regarding her candidacy. The first round of elections is on 18 April 2027 and the run-off if no candidate secures a majority vote is on 2 May.

 In 2022 and 2017, Le Pen finished behind Emmanuel Macron in his presidential campaigns. She is ahead in the polls less than ten months before the vote. Jordan Bardella, her young lieutenant, will take her place if she does not run, so her interview this evening on French television will have far-reaching effects for France. Before today's verdict, Le Pen told news channel LCI, "I won't be dead; whatever happens, I'll continue to fight for my ideas." The difference is that if she does hand the reins to Bardella, she would become a mere activist, not a presidential candidate.

 Marine Le Pen must now decide whether she will run for president.  While an effective ban on doing so has now been removed, she has previously indicated she would not do so with an electronic tag - a condition that remains.

 If she decides against running, Jordan Bardella is set to become the National Rally (RN) candidate.

 In 2012, when he was 17 years old, Bardella joined the National Front (FN), but he later dropped out of school to focus on his political career. He joined Le Pen's campaign in 2017, when he was still in his early 20s, and he has been party chairman since 2022. Bardella, who will turn 31 in September, would become the first hard-right head of state in modern French history and succeed Emmanuel Macron as France's youngest president. She said that Bardella would be prime minister if Le Pen were to become president, but she was ready to give him the presidency "if justice bars me from standing." Bardella stated to the BBC in December that he would "fight by her side so she can win the appeal," denying that the arrangement had led to tensions between him and Le Pen.