Far-right leader Marine Le Pen tries new tack in appeal critical to France’s political future

PARIS (CN) — France’s Extreme-right leader Marine Le Pen maintained at her highly anticipated appeal Tuesday afternoon she didn’t know about any fraudulent scheme taking place on her watch.

When hearings opened Jan. 13, the far-right leader said, “If a crime has been committed, and everyone agrees that a crime has indeed been committed, I was not aware of it.”

On Tuesday, Michèle Agi, president of the appeals court, opened by repeating the quote back to Le Pen.

“Can you elaborate?” she asked.

In March 2025, Le Pen was convicted of embezzling millions in European Union funds alongside 23 members of her National Rally party, known as the RN. Investigators said the party’s lawmakers received $24,500 monthly paychecks meant for parliamentary assistants in Brussels.

The outcome of the appeal will determine her political fate in the runup to France’s 2027 presidential elections.

Le Pen stood in front of the packed courtroom, gesticulating and often talking over Agi. Almost immediately, she shifted blame from herself to the European Union’s legislative body. In her view, the institution should have flagged the payments and informed the RN it was operating illegally.

“The European Parliament never advised us or criticized the work of our parliamentary assistants,” Le Pen told the courtroom. “The European Parliament couldn’t possibly have been unaware — for me, the situation wasn’t a problem.”

The focus then shifted to her late father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. He founded the National Front, which became the RN in 2018 under a rebranding effort. She explained her father implemented the hiring and payment systems, which came to her attention “rather late.”

“It didn’t seem like a problem to us,” Le Pen said. “For 15 years, we always dealt with the same people, and there were audits and requests for information.”

Later, she said her father was “always the de-facto leader of the group” and “it must have been very difficult to say no to him.”

Although Le Pen was given a four-year prison sentence and $108,000 fine, the most damning part of the sentence was a five-year ban on running for public office, rendering her ineligible to run for president just as she leads in polls for the first time.

After the verdict, Le Pen took a page from U.S. President Donald Trump’s playbook, insisting the judges were politically motivated.

“It’s clear that this sentence imposed on Marine Le Pen 10 months ago was a very strong signal from the justice system to say that justice in France insists on being independent from politics,” the prominent political scientist Gilbert Casasus said. “That is to say, until the ’80s, even the early ’90s, there was impunity in the French political world regarding the financing of political parties and many political parties, both on the left and the right, believed they were above the law.”

Le Pen’s tone was firm, but she was careful to remain composed and respectful, even when pressed by Agi. Experts point to a stark shift in her defense strategy from the original trial, which was more aggressive.

“So we were in maximum aggression, maximum conflict, and clearly a very confrontational approach,” Thomas Guénolé, a political scientist and author of ‘The Art of Always Being Right When You’re on the Left,’ explained. “And now, the change in strategy is complete, meaning she realized that it doesn’t work; now she’s pleading, ‘Oh well, if we committed an offense, we didn’t do it on purpose.’”

For Guénolé, the new defense is particularly interesting because it essentially discredits her previous position.

“The change in strategy of Marine Le Pen and her lieutenants proves that all their talk about it being a political trial is a lie,” he said. “Why does it prove that? Well, you can’t argue both that it’s a political trial and that you actually committed an offense.”

“Now, she pleads lack of intent,” Guénolé said. “So, we agree that it wasn’t a political trial and that the court just did its job.”

Now, Le Pen generally recognizes crimes were committed, although on Tuesday she still wouldn’t address the topic head-on. When Agi challenged Le Pen directly over whether she acknowledges any wrongdoing, she skirted the question, saying the affair involved a series of cases quite different from each other.

Later in the afternoon, Le Pen tried to paint a picture of political parties as a chaotic assembly of people who can be difficult to track.

“The way a political party works is really like a roller coaster,” she said. “A political party allows for the expression of suffrage, it runs communications, it has employees and volunteers.”

Le Pen also insists she never instructed members of Parliament to hire parliamentary assistants.

“I am willing to accept my responsibilities, but I refuse to accept responsibilities that are not mine,” she said.

Le Pen’s hearing is set to continue Wednesday.

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