ECHR rejects Le Pen's request to suspend public office ban

Paris [France], July 10: The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Wednesday rejected a request by Marine Le Pen to suspend her five-year ban from holding public office in France.
According to a statement on the court's website, the leader of the National Rally (RN) parliamentary group in the French National Assembly had sought to halt the provisional enforcement of a sentence of ineligibility imposed on March 31.
The Strasbourg-based court found that Le Pen had failed to demonstrate the existence of an "imminent risk of irreparable harm" to a right protected under the European Convention on Human Rights, an essential condition for granting emergency measures.
Le Pen was convicted in late March 2025 for embezzling funds from the European Parliament. Her sentence includes a five-year ban from holding public office, effective immediately, a four-year prison term, with two years served under electronic monitoring, and a fine of 100,000 euros (117,000 U.S. dollars). The ineligibility provision bars her from running in the 2027 presidential election or in any snap parliamentary vote until 2030.
Le Pen's legal team argued that enforcing the ban before the final ruling on her appeals violated her political rights and denied French voters the chance to support her candidacy. However, the ECHR dismissed that argument, stating there was no evidence of irreparable harm that would justify provisional measures.
Le Pen and other co-defendants filed an appeal with the Paris Court of Appeal on April 11. If the court overturns her conviction by summer 2026, she could regain eligibility in time to run in the 2027 presidential race.
On the same day as the ECHR ruling, French police raided the National Rally's headquarters in Paris, seizing documents and accounting records as part of a broader investigation into campaign finance.
Source: Xinhua News Agency