Trump and Musk blast embezzlement verdict as Le Pen plans appeal

US President Donald Trump and close ally Elon Musk weighed in on Marine Le Pen’s conviction after the far-right National Rally leader was found guilty of embezzlement and barred from running in the 2027 French presidential election.

Trump called the court’s decision a “very big deal” on Monday. “She was banned for five years and she was the leading candidate,” Trump said.

“That sounds like this country, that sounds very much like this country,” he added, in apparent reference to legal cases he faced before taking office for a second term.

“I know all about it, and a lot of people thought she wasn’t going to be convicted of anything,” he said.

The South African-born tech billionaire Elon Musk blasted the court verdict, which will see Le Pen and 24 codefendants also face a four-year prison sentence and a €100,000 fine for siphoning European Parliament funds to pay for party employees back home.

“When the radical left can’t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents,” Musk said Monday. “This is their standard playbook throughout the world.”

Musk, who has increasingly backed far-right movements across Europe, said the court verdict would “backfire” in a separate post

Le Pen to appeal

Speaking to French TV channel TF1 in her first reaction to the verdict, Le Pen called the ruling a “political decision” and said that millions of French people “are outraged”.

She called the verdict a violation of the rule of law, said she would appeal and asked that the court proceedings take place before the 2027 campaign.

She would remain ineligible to be a candidate until the appeal is decided.

“I didn’t think the magistrates would go so far against our democratic process”, she said in the TF1 interview.

“It’s a fatal day for our democracy.”

“There is no personal enrichment, so there is no corruption”, she said. “I’m going to pursue all possible avenues of appeal.”

She will have to resign as councillor for the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. She will continue to serve as an MP but will not be able to stand in legislative elections in the event of another dissolution of parliament in the near future.

A total of eight National Rally MEPs and their twelve assistants were also found guilty and barred from running for office. The party was also fined €2 million.

Le Pen and 24 other National Rally members were found guilty of embezzling money intended for European Parliament aides to pay staff who worked for the party over nearly 12 years.

Their full sentences were read out individually by the Paris court over several hours. Le Pen, who was sitting in the front row of the courtroom, visibly shook her head in disapproval as the verdict was read. She left without comment before sentencing ended.

The court estimated that the European Parliament’s total loss was €2.9 million, with Le Pen personally embezzling around €474,000.

“There was no personal enrichment … but there was the enrichment of a party,” Judge Bénédicte de Perthuis said, claiming it went against party financing rules.

“Let’s be clear: no one is on trial for doing politics, that’s not the issue. The issue was whether or not the contracts had been executed”, the judge added.

‘Je suis Marine’

Leaders from the European Parliament’s right-wing Patriots for Europe bloc have rallied around Le Pen after the sentencing.

Patriots.eu, the group to which Le Pen’s RN belongs, published a post on X expressing “full support to Marine Le Pen” against what it described as an “alarming authoritarian drift within the European Union.”

Leaders of Patriot-affiliated parties have also expressed solidarity with the RN’s founder.

“Je suis Marine,” (I am Marine), wrote Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on X.

“I back Marine,” was the message in French of Italy’s League leader, Matteo Salvini, posted on a picture with the French politician.

The League’s delegation in the European Parliament considered the ruling as “political and disproportionate,” and “the greatest judicial scandal of the Fifth [French] Republic.”

“Today it is not Marine Le Pen or the Rassemblement National being hit, but democracy,” read a note from the Italian party.

“I am shocked by the incredible tough verdict against Marine Le Pen,” wrote the Dutch nationalist leader Geert Wilders, founder and president of PVV, adding that he is confident she “will win the appeal and become President of France.”

Statements of solidarity and accusations towards the French judiciary also arrived from Belgium and Greece.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament resumed its business in Strasbourg on Monday afternoon, with some members also reacting to the sentencing.

“Justice has done its job, we need to accept it, and I call on everyone to bear responsibility,” Valérie Hayer, chair of the centrist Renew Europe group, told Euronews.

“All Republican forces must stand up against anti-judicial rhetoric, which is a slippery slope”, socialist MEP Chloé Ridel said.