Marine Le Pen barred from running for public office for five years
France's Marine Le Pen has been barred from running for office for five years after being found guilty of misappropriating European funds to finance her far-right National Rally (RN) party.
The momentous decision means that, unless she can get her sentence overturned before the 2027 presidential election, Le Pen will likely not be able to stand.
It would have been her fourth attempt, and the one offering the greatest chance of victory.
Judges imposed immediate ineligibility with her conviction, meaning the ban on holding public office will now come into effect even if Le Pen appeals.
She has also been 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.
Le Pen has also been handed a €100,000 (£82,635) fine.
She will very likely appeal the jail sentence, so it will not apply now.
Her lawyer Rodolphe Bosselut also said his client would appeal the ban on running for public office.
But the process may take a long time. The appeals trial would probably not happen for another year, and a verdict would come several months after that.
Preparing a presidential campaign under these circumstances could prove complicated.
Jordan Bardella, the 29-year-old president of the RN, said on Monday that Le Pen's sentencing was a "democratic scandal".
Bardella also called for a "popular, peaceful mobilisation".
He then posted a link to an online petition which says a "dictatorship of judges... wished to prevent French people from expressing themselves."
"Let's show those who want to circumvent democracy that the will of the people is stronger!", the petition reads.
At the start of the reading of the verdict, the judge, Bénédicte de Perthuis, said Le Pen had been at the "heart of the system" which saw the embezzlement of €2.9m worth of European funds.
Two dozen RN figures were also found guilty and the party was ordered to pay a €2m fine, with half the amount suspended.
Le Pen was accused, along with more than 20 other senior party figures, of hiring assistants who worked on her RN party affairs rather than for the European Parliament which paid them.
During the trial last year, Le Pen denied she had committed "the slightest irregularity".
There has not yet been any comment from Le Pen, who stormed out of court before the sentence was issued alongside other defendants and headed to the RN's Paris headquarters, where the party has been holding a "crisis meeting" for most of Monday.
She is expected to give an interview to French TV at 20:00 (19:00 BST).
At the weekend, Le Pen had told media that while she was "not nervous", the judges had "the power of life or death over the [political] movement."
Shortly before her sentencing, Le Pen received messages of support from the Kremlin, as well as European allies such as Hungary's Viktor Orban and Italy's Matteo Salvini.
But some of Le Pen's opponents have also stated they disapprove of the judge's decision.
Media reported that centrist Prime Minister François Bayrou was "troubled" by the ruling against Marine Le Pen, although he did not intend to make a public statement on the matter.
"The choice to dismiss an elected official should only belong to the people," said Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the far-left France Unbowed (LFI).
And Laurent Wauquiez, of the right-wing Republicans, said that the decision would "weigh very heavily on the functioning of our democracy".
"It's undoubtedly not the route that should have been taken."
The reading of the verdict, which started shortly after 10:00 (09:00 BST), took nearly three hours.
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