After a Paris court found nine National Rally (RN) MEPs, including Marine Le Pen, guilty and banned Le Pen from running for public office, critics are not surprised. After all, French President Macron’s close confidant heads the council that decided Le Pen’s fate, and she abstained from the vote on his presidency, handing him his win.
The ruling essentially takes out the top contender for the presidential race in 2027, with Le Pen leading recent polls. And this is clearly good news for Macron.
Richard Ferrand, a member of Macron’s Renaissance party, just recently took up the role of president of the Constitutional Council on March 8. He previously served as leader of the party’s group (then known as La République En Marche!) in France’s National Assembly and also parliamentary president. He is considered one of Macron’s closest advisors.
After dropping his party membership a few months ago, Macron appointed Ferrand as his nominee to head up the Constitutional Council in February, which then had to be approved by parliament. He was ironically voted in as president by a single vote, with Le Pen’s party abstaining, thus handing him the win.
Now, the council has ruled that Le Pen cannot run in the 2027 presidential election, without even waiting for a final binding decision.
At the time of the vote for the council president back in February, Politico had reported that “National Rally spokesperson Bryan Masson told reporters that Ferrand had ‘reassured’ far-right lawmakers during his confirmation hearing.”
At stake was the fact that the council was set to decide whether or not it was constitutional for defendants to be found ineligible to run for public office before exhausting their appeals options.
On Friday, March 28, the council ruled that defendants can be barred from office immediately if found guilty of a crime, just ahead of Le Pen’s conviction on Monday.
According to Mandiner, Ferrand gave an interview to Le Figaro in 2023, in which he openly argued for amending the French constitution to allow Macron to run for a third term as president.
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) April 1, 2025
Le Pen isn't backing down.
"I will always stand by the French. Millions of French people believe in me, millions of French people have confidence in me."
"I’ve been fighting injustice for 30 years. So I’m going to keep doing it, and I’m going to do it all the way." pic.twitter.com/XzApzueAqw
A piece in Le Monde back in February shed further light on the current council, stating that if Ferrand, along with two other nominees (Philippe Bas and Laurence Vichnievsky), were all confirmed, it could drastically alter the balance on the council. “These biases could weaken the institution in the future when it comes to deciding on highly political issues,” they wrote. As of now, it appears only Vichnievsky has not yet been confirmed.
