French far-right leader barred from running for office

Newshour

BBC

News, Daily News

4.4 • 984 Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

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Summary

Marine Le Pen has been barred from running for public office for five years, meaning she would not be able to run in the 2027 French presidential election. Also on the programme, the military authorities in Myanmar say more than two-thousand people are now known to have been killed by Friday's earthquake, but the final figure is likely to be higher; and a look at the young tennis player who defeated Novak Djokovic.

(Photo: French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, member of parliament of the Rassemblement National (National Rally - RN) party, looks on as she arrives for the verdict of her trial alongside 24 other defendants (party officials and employees, former lawmakers and parliamentary assistants) and the RN party itself, over accusations of misappropriation of European Union funds, at the courthouse in Paris, France, March 31, 2025. REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London.
0:08.2	I'm James Menendez. And our top story today takes us to France and a court verdict that has huge implications for politics in the country and further afield.
0:18.8	Because just a couple of hours ago, Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally Party,
0:24.2	was found guilty of embezzlement and barred
0:26.7	from running for public office for five years.
0:30.1	That ban means she won't be able to run in France's 2027 presidential election,
0:35.0	even though polls have suggested she is the leading candidate.
0:39.1	Ms Le Pen was also given a four-year prison sentence, although two of those are suspended.
0:44.2	Well, let's head straight to Paris and talk to the BBC's Hugh Schofield and Hugh.
0:48.4	In these situations, we often hear words like bombshell or political earthquake.
0:52.6	Are they justified in this case, do you think?
0:55.5	Well, it's certainly what they're using here in France on all the chat shows and the news
0:58.8	programmes. They're seeing this, seeing this as an unprecedented and extremely destabilising
1:05.8	moment in French politics when a person who, as you're saying, is way ahead of the rest of the pack in
1:11.9	the run up to an election two years from now, admittedly, is told by a court that she can't run,
1:17.5	that obviously has huge implications, not just for her and her party, but for democracy
1:21.9	as a whole. She's appealing. I see now that's just broken. And there is a theoretical possibility that, I mean, that might save her. But for that to happen, the appeal would have to happen quite quickly. And then normally they'll take a year or more to arrange an appeal. And then, of course, she'd have to have this decision overturned on appeal, and that's far from being certain.
1:46.7	So, I mean, there's a sort of theoretical kind of light in the tunnel which she may say she's going to stick to, but on the face of it, unless the thing is overturned on appeal, she can't run.
1:57.9	And, you know, this is a woman who has a very serious chance to become
2:01.2	the next president of France. So, of course, it's a, it's a massive blow to her and a massive
2:07.0	change in the political landscape. So a ban, a fine as well, this prison sentence. And what exactly
2:14.4	was she convicted of doing then? Yeah. So, you know, the fine and the
	...

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