Marine Le Pen Could Be Banned From France Election if She’s Found Guilty of Embezzlement

Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, has tried and failed three times to become president. Now, even as her popularity rises, she may be barred from taking part in an election to lead France if she is found guilty of embezzlement on Monday.

Such a verdict, far from certain, has been equated by Ms. Le Pen with a “political death” sentence and a “very violent attack on the will of the people.” It would ignite a major political storm at a time when the French Fifth Republic has appeared increasingly dysfunctional.

On the one hand stands the principle, as Nicolas Barret, one of the prosecutors, put it in closing arguments last year, that “We are not here in a political arena but a legal one, and the law applies to all.”

On the other hand lies the fear, expressed by some leading politicians, that a ban would undermine French democracy by feeding a suspicion that it is skewed against the growing forces of the hard right.

“Madame Le Pen must be fought at the ballot box, not elsewhere,” Gérald Darmanin, a former center-right interior minister, wrote on X in November. He is now the justice minister.

Ms. Le Pen, 56, has steered her anti-immigrant party from its antisemitic roots toward the mainstream. The party, whose name she changed from the National Front to the National Rally, is now the largest single party in the National Assembly with 123 seats.