MARINE Le Pen has been jailed for four years and has seen her ambition to become the next President of France left in tatters.

The 56-year-old far-Right politician was at the Paris Correctional Court to hear the verdict in a corruption case involving her party, the National Rally (RN).

She was found guilty by three judges of “embezzling public funds” by setting up a fake jobs at the European Parliament.

Le Pen was sentenced for four years in prison with two suspended – and has been banned from holding public office.

Her allies reacted with fury – blasting the conviction as politically motivated and calling it a “declaration of war by Brussels”.

She will no longer be able to stand as President in 2027, despite being viewed as a favourite to take over from Emmanuel Macron. 

In a hard-hitting judgement, magistrates accused Le Pen “undermining democracy”.

Prosecutors have called for a five-year prison sentence – with two served as community service – and a fine equivalent to £250,000. 

Le Pen and 24 other defendants are said to have stolen around £5.6million of European taxpayers’ money by setting up fake jobs in the European Parliament over a period of at least a decade. 

Those convicted alongside here included eight other former RN MEPs.

Instead of spending the money on MEP expenses in Brussels and Strasbourg, they sent it all back to the RN party HQ in Paris, it is alleged. 

The judgement read: “Marine Le Pen has been at the heart of this illegal system since 2009.

“The events have seriously and lastingly undermined the rules of democracy.

“This is an enrichment of the party, a circumvention of the rules governing political party financing, and therefore a circumvention of democracy.”

Facing up to three specialist anti-corruption judges during a trial that ended in November,  Ms Le Pen said: “It’s my political death they’re after.

“The prosecution’s intention is to deprive the French people of the ability to vote for those they want.”

Today it is not only Marine Le Pen who was unjustly condemned: It was French democracy that was killed

Jordan Bardella

This was despite evidence pointing to a “sophisticated billing system” being set up by Le Pen, an MEP in Brussels from 2004 until 2017.

Prosecutor Louise Neyton said Le Pen and her co-defendants had “bluntly put, turned the European Parliament into their cash cow.”

President Macron will be forced to stand down as head of state in 2027, having served the two terms allowed in France. 

Ms Le Pen came second in the last two presidential elections, and her vote share has gone up every time.

The RN  is currently the largest part in the National Assembly – the Paris equivalent of the House of Commons – with 123 seats 

Around 13million people vote for the party at elections – around a third of the national vote – and many see Ms Le Pen as the appropriate successor to the liberal centrist Mr Macron, who came to power in 2017.

Arnaud Benedetti, a political analyst who has written a book on the RN, said Le Pen’s five-year ban was a watershed moment in French politics that would reverberate across parties and through the electorate.

“This is a seismic political event,” he said. “Inevitably, it’s going to reshuffle the pack, particularly on the right.”

Appeals in France can take months or even years.

Le Pen helped to detoxify the RN, which was founded by her late father, Jean Marie Le Pen, as the National Rally in 1972.

It was firmly linked with racism, including anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, for decades, along with a fiercely anti-Muslim agenda.

While the RN still places anti-immigration policies at the centre of its agenda, it has toned down its rhetotic.

It is still a party dominated by the Le Pen family name, however, and if this goes, it is likely to see its fortunes reversed.

Rise and fall of Marine Le Pen

MARINE Le Pen led France’s National Rally (RN) to unprecedented highs.

1972 – Marine Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie founds the National Front – with the party having heavy links to Nazi collaborators from World War 2.

1974 – Jean-Marie secures only 1 per cent of the vote in French presidential elections.

1986 – The party wins its first seats in the National Assembly.

1988 – Le Pen wins 14.4 per cent of the vote – and then the party wins 10 per cent of the vote in European elections.

2002 – He runs again and wins 16.9 per cent of the vote – making it to the run-off against Jacque Chirac before being defeated by a margin to 80 to 20 per cent.

2008 – Le Pen is handed a three-month suspended president sentence for saying  the Nazi occupation of France was “not particularly inhumane”.

2011 – Marine takes over as the new leader as the party’s fortunes popularity nosedives.

2014 – She leds then to winning 11 town halls and taking first place in the European elections.

2015 – Jean-Marie is expelled from the party by Marine after comments about the Holocaust.

2017 – Runs for the presidency, but then loses to Emmanuel Macron.

2018 – The party is renamed the National Rally rather than National Front.

2022 – Jordan Bardella, a 28-year-old protege of Marine Le Pen, is chosen to be the new chairman of the RN.

2024 – Bardella leads the party to new highs in both European and Parliamentary elections.

2025 – Le Pen is found guility of embezzlement and jailed for four years while also being banned from public office for four years.

Ms Le Pen’s immediate heir is Jordan Bardella, a 29-year-old who has been president of the RN since 2022, but is considered too young, inexperienced and unqualified for high office.

Mr Bardella is a former EU parliamentary assistant for the RN, but is not implicated in the current trial.

He said: “Today it is not only Marine Le Pen who was unjustly condemned: It was French democracy that was killed.”

Eric Zemmour, president of the far-right Reconquest party, said: “It is not for judges to decide who the people must vote for.

“Whatever our disagreements, Marine Le Pen is legitimate to present herself for the vote.”

And then Matteo Salvini, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister, also reacted with fury.

He said: “The ruling against Marine Le Pen is a declaration of war by Brussels, at a time when the warlike impulses of Von der Leyen and Macron are frightening.

“We will not be intimidated, we will not stop: full steam ahead my friend.”