Marine Le Pen To Run For French Presidency Next Year Despite Court-Ordered Monitor

Marine Le Pen said she will run for the French presidency next year despite a Tuesday sentence requiring her to wear a court-ordered electronic monitor for embezzlement. The 57-year-old, a veteran of three presidential races, faces a campaign shaped by the monitoring and by a judge’s later decision on how long the punishment will apply. Le Pen told a television interview that she will appeal to France’s highest court and that the process will suspend the year-long monitoring sentence, adding that she plans to campaign without an electronic bracelet and framed herself as a candidate. An appeals court shortened a prior five-year ban by reducing it to 45 months with two-thirds suspended, and she had already served 15 months. The court also reduced her prison term from four years to three, with two suspended. The ruling upheld guilty verdicts for 11 accused, involving misuse of European Parliament funds by her National Rally, though remaining monitoring conditions will be set by another judge in the coming weeks.