France's far-right on Tuesday announced protests in support of its leader Marine Le Pen, who was sentenced to four years in prison for embezzlement of European Parliament funds. The sentence issued by the French judges prohibits her from holding public office for 5 years. Therefore, Marine Le Pen will not be able to run in the presidential election in France in two years, IPN reports.

Le Pen was given a four-year prison sentence, of which two will be suspended. The other two can be spent with an electronic tag rather than in custody, BFM TV reports.

Le Pen was fined €100,000 and her National Rally party was fined €2 million, of which €1 million is a fine and the other is the amounts confiscated by the authorities during the investigation. The money will remain in the French state treasury, according to Le Figaro.

The court estimated that the other eight members of the party led by Marine Le Pen caused €2.9 million damage to the state when they held positions as parliamentary assistants and were paid from European funds, although they actually did not work in the European Parliament, but worked for the party, at national level.

The party's deputy chairman Louis Aliot was sentenced to 18 months in prison, of which 12 will be suspended. He was banned from running for public office for three years. The other party members will also not be able to contend in elections over the next five years.

Marine Le Pen was prohibited from running for head of state in France in 2027. She ran in the French presidential election in 2017 and 2022. In both cases, she reached the runoff vote together with Emmanuel Macron, but lost the election.

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