That is all true but in this case she was sentenced to 2 years prison and 2 years house arrest, it's not exactly locking her up and throwing away the key for a minor infraction.
Letting judges bar someone from running for office is silly though, if French law allows that they should reconsider; if someone is popular enough to win a national election despite a reasonable criminal conviction they are popular enough to threaten the civil order if they are barred from office.
I mean that, in general, criminal laws can be interpreted to take minor wrongdoings and turn them into serious crimes. I’m not saying that was the case with Le Pen.
In fact, I think the conflict between law enforcement and politics in the Le Pen case is largely self-inflicted. There was no need to include the constraint on running for office in the punishment. And it seems like the wrongful conduct ended in 2017. Why did it take so long to work through to a verdict?
Letting judges bar someone from running for office is silly though, if French law allows that they should reconsider; if someone is popular enough to win a national election despite a reasonable criminal conviction they are popular enough to threaten the civil order if they are barred from office.