French far-right leader Marine Le Pen announced on Tuesday that she would be a candidate in the 2027 presidential race despite an appeal court confirming her conviction for embezzlement earlier in the day.
Speaking to French TV channel TF1 on Tuesday evening Le Pen announced that she was “standing as a presidential candidate” and would "not change her mind”.
Earlier the Paris appeals court had found Le Pen guilty over a fake jobs scam at the European Parliament but reduced her sentence, banning her from office for 15 months as well as sentencing her to one year to be served with an electronic tag.
“I will campaign without an ankle tag,” said a defiant Le Pen as she announced a plan to appeal the verdict at the country's highest court.
“Because I have the option to appeal, this suspends the sentences handed down by the Court of Appeal,” the leader of the far-right party Rassemblement National said. “Tonight, I am a presidential candidate” and “I will not change my mind”.
