It’s my political death they want,” far-right leader Marine Le Pen claimed in November – a prediction that proved prescient, though few took it seriously at the time.

Marine Le Pen, the figurehead of the ascendant far-right political movement in France, was hit with a non-custodial prison sentence and barred from running in elections for five years on Monday as a court found her guilty of embezzling European Union funds to pay members of her National Rally party's staff.

The sentence made the far-right leader ineligible for five years, excluding her from the 2027 election unless she can secure a more favorable outcome on appeal.