RN trial: Marine Le Pen challenges the loss of her mandate as departmental councilor in court
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Marine Le Pen is now taking to the courts, challenging the loss of her mandate as departmental councilor for Pas-de-Calais before the Lille administrative court on Tuesday, May 20, as she contests her first-instance sentence of five years of ineligibility with provisional execution. Like the rest of the far right, the elected official had, however, repeatedly attacked the rule of law.
The court had ruled that the facts were too serious to defer the five years of ineligibility to which Marine Le Pen was sentenced – in addition to four years in prison, two of which were suspended – on March 31 for having developed a system of embezzlement of public funds, for a total loss of €4.1 million in the case of the assistants of MEPs from the National Rally. While the provisional execution does not result in the end of her mandate as an MP – which earned her a cheering reception from her group upon her return to the Assembly after the trial – it does terminate her local mandates and, in this case, her mandate as departmental councilor for Pas-de-Calais. This is what the leader of the far right is contesting before the Lille administrative court on Tuesday, May 20.
In April, the Pas-de-Calais prefecture notified Marine Le Pen of her automatic resignation from her position as departmental councillor due to her conviction. In the wake of this, Steeve Briois, RN mayor of Hénin-Beaumont and also a Pas-de-Calais departmental councillor, announced on X that "a suspensive appeal has been filed with the administrative court". "Marine Le Pen is therefore engaged in a long procedural battle to guarantee her rights and her honour after a conviction that we find as unjust as it is shameful" , added the elected official, using the same rhetoric as that used by the far right in the wake of the judgment against "the tyranny of judges" and other "political verdicts" .
Beyond this appeal, Marine Le Pen has appealed her conviction and is expected to be tried again by the summer of 2026. In the meantime, she is striving to remain in the race for the 2027 presidential election . "I am not disappearing because of a court decision that is being appealed," she declared on May 8, following a poll in which she had not initially tested and which gave more points to RN president Jordan Bardella.
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