Marine Le Pen: Court confirms the forfeiture of her mandate as departmental councilor

The Lille administrative court confirmed on Wednesday the compulsory resignation of Marine Le Pen from her mandate as departmental councillor of Pas-de-Calais , dismissing the elected official who contested this forfeiture linked to her conviction in March for embezzlement of public funds .

But the lawyer for the leader of the National Rally deputies, Thomas Laval, immediately announced that she was appealing this decision, an appeal which suspends the automatic resignation.

The court ruled that the electoral code requires "the prefect to automatically declare the departmental elected official declared ineligible by the criminal court to have resigned, by a judgment accompanied by provisional execution," the court explained in a press release.

He also rejected the priority question of constitutionality (QPC) raised by the lawyer for the far-right leader. He considered that the compulsory resignation provided for in the event of a penalty of ineligibility that is not definitive but is provisionally enforceable could undermine the freedom of voters and other constitutional principles.

The administrative court stressed that these legislative provisions have already been deemed to be in conformity with the Constitution by a decision of the Constitutional Council of March 28, 2025, relating to municipal councilors, subject to the same rules as departmental councilors.

In a statement released to the press, Marine Le Pen's lawyer deplored a decision that "deprives her of representing the voters of the canton of Hénin-Beaumont 2", even though "she is still presumed innocent of the facts of which she is accused".

Marine Le Pen has appealed her sentence at the end of March by the Paris Criminal Court to four years in prison, two of which are suspended, and five years of immediate ineligibility.

"The mechanism of compulsory resignation for a non-definitive sentence of ineligibility violates several fundamental principles in a state governed by the rule of law, such as the principle of adversarial proceedings, as well as several of France's international commitments," according to Mr. Laval.

Marine Le Pen was sentenced on March 31 to five years of immediate ineligibility in connection with her party's MEP assistants. According to case law, she retains her mandate as a member of parliament for Pas-de-Calais, but was dismissed in April from her position as a departmental councilor.

The court found that she was at the "heart" of a system of embezzlement of public funds set up to pay party employees with European Parliament money between 2004 and 2016. The total amount of embezzlement was €4.4 million.