BELGIQUE PERSPECTIVE

Brussels, July 7, 2026. A split verdict from Paris: the appeals court confirms Marine Le Pen's guilt in misappropriating European Parliament funds, yet reduces her ineligibility from five years to 45 months with 30 suspended—meaning 15 months already served since March 2025. Belgian press underscores the immediate consequence: the National Rally leader theoretically regains eligibility to run in 2027's presidential election. La Libre Belgique notes that "announcement of the sentences sparked shock in the courtroom," as judge Michele Agi justified the ruling by saying "execution of this sentence [...] has already fully repaired the breach of probity." Yet Brussels fixates on the catch: one year imprisonment coupled with electronic monitoring, plus a 100,000-euro fine. Le Pen had explicitly made absence of such measures a prerequisite for candidacy. "As a presidential candidate, you must remain completely free to move," she told VRT NWS in a televised interview, stressing that electronic monitoring renders such freedom impossible. The Flemish press, however, identifies a potential legal reprieve: a January 2023 law allows anyone deprived of liberty to seek up to six months' reduction per year of incarceration, potentially cutting monitoring to six months instead of one year—a decision resting with an enforcement judge. DH characterizes this as "an unprecedented scenario since 1981," allowing the National Rally to preserve its preferred gambit: Le Pen at the Elysee Palace, Jordan Bardella as Prime Minister if victorious. Belgian media ultimately stress uncertainty over the subject's final decision, expected that evening on TF1's 8 p.m. broadcast. Neither outright victory nor clear defeat, Paris's verdict reads in Brussels as fragile compromise: justice lifts the legal barrier without removing material constraint, leaving Le Pen herself the ultimate arbiter of candidacy.