Update (0845ET): Messages of support poured in for Le Pen shortly after her conviction, with the Kremlin and Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orban among the first to weigh in.
As a reminder, Le Pen led in the polls...
“Her conviction will strengthen her aura in French society: that’s what we can learn from Trump-style American politics,” said Christophe Marion, a lawmaker from Macron’s party.
The presidential elections in Romania and the Le Pen verdict show that “democratic norms are being trampled upon,” in Europe, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
“Je suis Marine,” Orban tweeted following the ruling.
For Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, the verdict was "tough". "I trust she will win the appeal and become President of France," he wrote on X.
Italy’s deputy prime minister and leader of the League party Matteo Salvini called the ruling a “declaration of war by Brussels.”
But there was also unease within the political mainstream in France.
"It is not healthy that in a democracy, an elected official is prohibited from standing in an election and I believe that political debates should be decided at the ballot box," said the leader of MPs in parliament of the right-wing Republicans, Laurent Wauquiez.
Even the leader of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) Jean-Luc Melenchon appeared ill at ease. "The decision to remove an elected official should be up to the people," he said.
RN president Jordan Bardella denounced the sentence on his X account, calling it “unjust” and amounting to an execution of French democracy.
Mike Benz posted on X, summing things up succinctly:
"They are fucking with something no democratic system should ever fuck with. If people perceive — rightly — that democracy is a farce, & anyone who runs against the order will be arrested, they’ll not only want to tear it down, they’ll seek an honest autocracy over false democracy."
Observers have drawn parallels with US President Donald Trump, who won a second term with a clutch of criminal cases hanging over him and, like Le Pen, has made trenchant opposition to immigration a cornerstone of his program.
Le Pen can still appeal the entire verdict, including the ban on standing for office, in a case that would normally take around a year to be heard by the court of appeal.
If her appeal process drags on or if it is quick and her ineligibility is confirmed, the National Rally would probably choose another candidate to run in her stead — most likely her 29-year-old deputy, Jordan Bardella. That could cause a "major internal rift" for the party, which has mostly been led since its creation by Le Pen or her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at the Eurasia Group.
The National Rally is "a party with many different views," he said. "Albeit they all fall in behind Le Pen. If she were not their leader anymore, then I suspect Bardella … will be a lot less effective in corralling [the party] to remain disciplined and united and to cohere around one view."
Either way, Monday's ruling is not "the end of the story," but rather "a step in the process," Rahman said. Once Le Pen appeals, the Constitutional Council, France's highest court, will ultimately need to weigh in, potentially setting a precedent for how such cases could be handled in the future, he said.
Le Pen had said in a piece for the La Tribune Dimanche newspaper published on Sunday that the verdict gives the "judges the right of life or death over our movement".
She is due to give a primetime TV interview to broadcaster TF1 on Monday evening.
* * *
As Remix News detailed earlier, a judge has ruled Marine Le Pen is ineligible to run for office, along with eight MEPs from her National Rally party, after they were found guilty of misappropriation of EU funds.
The move is the latest attack on democracy in the EU, with judges increasingly deciding elections in Europe.
Le Pen has also been sentenced to four years in prison, with two years suspended.
Notably, the news comes right as Le Pen leads the polling for French presidential elections in 2027, as Remix News reported earlier today.
The court estimated that the total losses amounted to €2.9 million, as a result of “paying by the European Parliament people who actually worked for the far-right party.” Le Pen was found to be responsible for €1.8 million in damages herself. The judgment also concerns 12 assistants. The prosecutor’s office initially alleged that €7 million had been used in this way.
Investigators accused Le Pen of managing the illegal use of European subsidies between 2004 and 2016, when she served as an MEP. They stated that instead of working in Strasbourg, assistants were to work for Le Pen’s National Rally party in a domestic capacity.
“It was found that all these people actually worked for the party, that their deputy did not commission them any tasks,” said the judge. Assistants then “passed from one deputy to another.”
“It was not about combining the work of assistants, but about combining the budgets of MPs,” said the judge.
Le Pen said before the trial that the matter is entirely political and that her opponents wished for her “political death.”
Other commentators have expressed surprise at not only the verdict but also the decision to exclude her from elections.
Pierre Lellouche, a lawyer and former Deputy of the French National Assembly, appeared on CNEWS to point out that the current prime minister, François Bayrou, faced the same charge and suffered no consequences.
“Then, last but not least, there is the case of (François) Bayrou, the current prime minister, who has been prosecuted for exactly the same thing, i.e., for abuses of party funding declared as parliamentary assistants in Europe, at the EU parliament. Bayrou emerged from this affair without being in the least concerned. In fact, the public prosecutor’s office has once again referred the matter to the courts, but even so, we’re dealing with a double standard here. It’s a bit surprising.”
He noted that the “separation of powers” is increasingly shifting towards judges, and noted that in many previous elections, these judges have tipped the scales in favor of certain candidates.
“We’re finding that more and more, everything is getting mixed up, everywhere. Look at Trump, who had seven judges behind him, and that didn’t stop him from winning. Finally, Strauss-Kahn was eliminated, Fillon was eliminated by a somewhat untimely and rapid indictment at the time of the presidential election, which allowed Mr. Macron to govern the country for seven years after all, which is no mean feat. Especially since, in the Fillon affair, the public prosecutor subsequently indicated that this was not entirely neutral and that the Élysée was particularly interested in this case. So you see, there is a separation of powers, but at the moment, power is shifting to the judges, and that can have a huge impact.”
Another attorney, Maxime Thiebaut, also brought up the case of Bayrou, saying:
“At the very least, you know, it comes as a surprise that Marine Le Pen has been found guilty. I would point out that Mr. (François) Bayrou was acquitted on a similar charge, because it was considered that he had not acted with intent. So I wasn’t in Mr. Bayrou’s file and I wasn’t in Ms. Le Pen’s file, but I note that there was also an expectation that Madame Le Pen would be guilty.
We all know very well that when you’re the leader of a political party, you’re pretty far removed from the actual running of the party. Mr. Bayrou was recognized by Ms. Le Pen. Is it political or not? I don’t know and I won’t give my opinion on that.”
This is not the only such case either, with Romania banning the presidential frontrunner, Călin Georgescu, from running for president as well as arresting him.
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via zer0hedge
