President Donald Trump expressed his backing for Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader in France, by urging for her release and denouncing her disqualification from holding public office as a form of unfair persecution.

Le Pen, aged 56, was found guilty on Monday of fraudulently creating positions at the EU parliament and misusing funds to pay aides who were, in reality, employed by her party in France.

As the head of the right-wing National Rally (RN) party, she was prohibited from participating in elections for five years and sentenced to four years in prison, with half of the term being suspended and the remainder to be served under electronic surveillance.

In a post to his Truth Social account, Trump wrote: ‘In The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech, and censor their Political Opponent, this time going so far as to put that Opponent in prison.’

He went on to add that while he doesn’t know Le Pen personally he does ‘appreciate how hard she worked for so many years’.

The post continued: ‘She suffered losses, but kept on going, and now, just before what would be a Big Victory, they get her on a minor charge that she probably knew nothing about – Sounds like a ‘bookkeeping’ error to me. 

‘It is all so bad for France, and the Great French People, no matter what side they are on. FREE MARINE LE PEN!’

Trump’s DOGE adviser Elon Musk echoed the American president’s views as he reposted the message on X (formerly Twitter) writing ‘Free Le Pen!’.

President Donald Trump had demanded that France ‘free’ presidential candidate Marine Le Pen

Marine Le Pen, president of the far-right National Rally (RN) parliamentary group, leaves the National Rally headquarters after the verdict on Monday

Monday’s verdict was seen as a hammer blow to Le Pen’s long-held hopes of ascending to the presidency in 2027. 

She was also ordered to pay a $100,000 fine and her party was docked $2 million – half of which must be paid definitively, while the other half would be demanded in the event of a repeat offence.

Le Pen could appeal her sentence. If her bid fails, she will get a four-year prison sentence – two of which were suspended and two to be served under house arrest.

Twenty-four people, including Le Pen, were convicted – all of them RN party officials or assistants. Only one defendant was acquitted of any wrongdoing. Le Pen said she will appeal.

She argued the court should not have made her ineligible to run for office until all her chances at appeal had been exhausted, and that by doing so it was clear the court was aiming ‘specifically to prevent’ her from being elected president.

‘If that’s not a political decision, I don’t know what is,’ Le Pen said in the TF1 interview.

She said the ruling marked a ‘fateful day for our democracy’ but vowed to keep pursuing what she called the now ‘admittedly narrow’ path to the presidency.

‘There are millions of French people who believe in me, millions of French people who trust me,’ she added. 

‘For 30 years I’ve been fighting for you, and for 30 years I’ve been fighting against injustice, so I’m going to continue fighting.’

She is allowed to keep her seat in the French Parliament.

Earlier this week, Trump compared himself to convicted French presidential candidate, calling her ban from elective office a ‘very big deal.’

‘That’s a big deal. That’s a very big deal,’ Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

He expressed sympathy for Le Pen and said her situation ‘sounds very much like this country.’

‘That’s a big deal. That’s a very big deal,’ Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

He expressed sympathy for Le Pen and said her situation ‘sounds very much like this country.’

‘I know all about it, and a lot of people thought she wasn’t going to be convicted of anything and I don’t know that it means conviction but she was banned for running for five years and she’s the leading candidate. That sounds like this country. That sounds very much like this country,’ he added. 

Marine Le Pen in  French Parliament on Tuesday

Trump has long portrayed himself the victim of a government ‘witch hunt’ and politically motivated prosecutions. 

The American president has been subject to many lawsuits from state and federal governments:

• The state of New York convicted him in 2024 of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels but his sentencing was indefinitely postponed following his second election to the presidency
• Before the November 2024, a federal judge dismissed the federal charges relating to Trump’s handling of classified documents
• After Trump’s election, the special counsel decided to abandon the federal charges related to the 2020 election, citing the Justice Department policy of not prosecuting sitting presidents
• A case against in Georgia is on pause while the courts decide whether a state-level prosecutor can prosecute a sitting president 

He denied wrongdoing in all the cases.

Other officials in the Trump administration have echoed the president’s stance on Le Pen.

US Vice President JD Vance said yesterday that Le Pen was convicted of a very minor offense and barring her from running for office was ‘not democracy.’

‘They’re trying to throw her in prison and throw her off the ballot,’ Vance said in an interview with the Newsmax television channel. ‘Look, that’s not democracy.’

He said Le Pen had been ‘leading in some polls’ for France’s 2027 presidential election and had been convicted of an ‘incredibly minor charge that implicates, by the way, her staff, not even Marine Le Pen herself.’

Trump has long portrayed himself the victim of a government ‘witch hunt’ and politically motivated prosecutions 

Musk also slammed the French court’s decision, saying: ‘When the radical left can’t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents. This is their standard playbook throughout the world.’

And State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the department was ‘aware’ of Le Pen’s sentencing.

‘Exclusion of people from the political process is particularly concerning given the aggressive and corrupt lawfare waged against President [Donald] Trump here in the United States,’ Bruce said.

But she declined to comment specifically on Le Pen’s case.

In the face of the widespread criticism of the verdict, one of France’s top two public prosecutors denied there was a political element to Monday’s decision.

‘Justice is not political, this is not a political decision but a legal one, delivered by three independent, impartial judges,’ Remy Heitz told RTL radio station.

It wasn’t just Trump who was critical of the verdict. Other conservative leaders in Europe blasted it.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the ruling against Le Pen disenfranchised millions of voters in France and the EU. 

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also blasted the verdict against Le Pen

‘I don’t know the merits of the accusations against Marine Le Pen, or the reasons for such a strong decision,’ Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy party, told Il Messaggero.

‘But I think that no one who cares about democracy can rejoice at a sentence that targets the leader of a major party and deprives millions of citizens of representation.’

Russia also waded in. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling reporters: ‘More and more European capitals are going down the path of trampling over democratic norms. 

‘Of course, we do not want to interfere in France’s internal affairs, we have never done so.

‘But in general, our observations of European capitals show that they are not at all reluctant to go beyond democracy during the political process.’