Marine Le Pen‘s presidency dreams are in tatters after she has been banned from running in the next French presidential election.
The leader of the far-right National Rally (RN) has been banned from running for office for five years, meaning she will not be able to contest the French presidential election in 2027.
This comes after she was found guilty of embezzling European funds to finance her party.
Along with the ban, Le Pen was also sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, two of which will be suspended.
However, she may not actually spend time behind bars, and could instead be given restrictions such as wearing an electronic tag, the BBC reports.
Le Pen is expected to appeal this sentence, so it will not apply immediately.
She was also given a €100,000 (£82,635) fine.
Le Pen left the courtroom before the judge had finished handing down the sentence.
She was accused of hiring assistants who worked on RN affairs instead of the European Parliament, who were paying them.
Le Pen and 24 other officials from the party were accused of diverting more than €3m (£2.51m) of European Parliament funds to pay France-based staff between 2004 and 2016.
She was found guilty of embezzlement of EU funds along with eight MEPs.
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