Politicians reaping what they sow, pt. 1
France's Marine Le Pen is handed a potentially mortal blow in her bid to become the next resident of the Élysée Palace.
It may not seem like it right now if you are wholly focused on the US, but every once and a while a politician is held to account for his or her actions. Last week, national courts in France and South Korea rendered verdicts that did just that.
Today, we look at what happened in France.
The facts of the case against Marine Le Pen
Last fall, Marine Le Pen, the head of the French far-right Rassemblement National (RN, National Rally) and leading candidate to be the next president of France, went on trial. Before she became a major player in France’s national political scene, Le Pen served as a Member of European Parliament (MEP) from 2004 to 2017.
Le Pen, along with 24 other defendants (former RN MEPs and assorted staff), were accused of misusing ~€4mn of EU funds from 2004-2016. The EU allocated this taxpayer money to Le Pen’s party in Europe to pay assistants for work focused on EU business. But instead, the defendants were accused of using these funds to pay for the party’s work in France that had no connection to EU parliamentary duties.
Court’s decision
The court ruled there was “no doubt” Le Pen and the other defendants had embezzled EU funds by creating fake jobs to pay staff for work not related to their EU parliamentary duties but instead for the party in France. It should be noted that while the fake jobs benefited the party, the ex-MEPs (including Le Pen) were not personally enriched by the scheme. Le Pen herself, as an MEP from 2004 and leader of the party since 2011, was found to have directly organized ‘fake’ contracts worth ~$500k while also acting as the authority behind the wider fake jobs program.
Some evidence cited by the judge include:
A 2014 email from one MEP to the party treasurer: “What Marine is asking is equivalent to us signing for fictitious jobs …” to which the treasurer replied “I think Marine knows all that …”.
An email from one party employee in France: “I’d like to see the European parliament and that would also allow me to meet the member of the European parliament I’m attached to.” This implied the employee had never been to EU parliament, despite supposedly having been working there for four months.
The court noted some of the work was inconsistent that of a full-time parliamentary assistant, such as one of the defendants who worked as Le Pen’s bodyguard.
A bit of context is important here. While a few million Euros may not sound like a lot of money, at the time RN was a relatively minor player in France with just a smattering of seats in the European Parliament and none in the French National Assembly. These funds were actually important to keeping the party afloat in France. An email cited by the judge sent by the RN’s treasurer to Le Pen in 2014 notes that, “[RN will] only get through if we make big savings thanks to the European parliament…”
The court handed Le Pen a four-year jail sentence, though two of the years could be served by wearing an ankle monitor and the other two years were suspended. She was also fined €100,000.
But much more importantly than either of these punishments, the court banned Le Pen from running for office for five years, effective immediately. A five-year ban blocks her from running in the 2027 French presidential election.
It’s important to note that Le Pen’s conviction is not unique and France has a robust recent history of prosecuting political leaders.1 In a situation most relevant to Le Pen’s, the party of current prime minister François Bayrou, the center-right Democratic Movement, was found guilty last year of the same crime as Le Pen (though Bayrou was cleared of any wrongdoing). As a result, any attempt by Le Pen to claim this as a partisan witch hunt risks redounding onto her and RN as simply sour grapes.
What comes next?
Le Pen has appealed and the Paris Court of Appeal said it will expedite the process in order to levy a decision by summer 2026, allowing plenty of time before the 2027 election.
With current president Emmanuel Macron term limited without a real successor waiting in the wings, 2027 had been shaping up to be Le Pen’s best shot at ascending to the top of the French political mountain. RN had recently won the most seats in France’s snap parliamentary election last year, and while polling this far out is a bit tenuous, Le Pen has been at the top.
Even with the verdict and ban, Le Pen can still sit as a current member of France’s National Assembly. But there are hints that Le Pen and the RN could back a vote of no confidence, effectively bringing down France’s National Assembly and possibly putting Macron in the position of calling another snap election this summer. But a government collapse would also be an act of self-harm on the part of Le Pen, as she would not be eligible to run for her seat (since her five-year ban is already in place).
Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s top lieutenant since 2022, is the preliminary favorite to take Le Pen’s RN spot on presidential ballot but, at 29-years-old is still relatively young and inexperienced. Meanwhile, the party is personified by Le Pen, who has led the party for well over a decade and has successfully detoxified and mainstreamed it. How the party would function without Le Pen’s stewardship is a bit of a mystery.
Attacking the verdict
In the days after the verdict, assorted populist figures have come out swinging for Le Pen.
Donald Trump: A lengthy ‘truth’ equating Le Pen to himself, ending it with a call to “FREE MARINE LE PEN!”
Elon Musk: Tweeted, “When the radical left can’t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents.”
Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for Vladimir Putin: Said, “more and more European capitals are going down the path of trampling democratic norms.”
Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister: Tweeted “Je suis Marine!” (in English, “I am Marine”)
You’ll notice a common theme among these supporters, little attention to the actual facts and merits of the case. These endorsements have come as the judges involved in the case have received threats, a tried and true playbook of threatening the rule of law. Importantly though, Le Pen has condemned these threats.
Instead, Le Pen has framed the verdict as an attack on the democratic process and the ability of the French people to choose their elected representatives. At a demonstration in Paris over the weekend, Le Pen said the ruling “prevented the only sovereign — the people — from expressing themselves.”
Attacking the result may play well to Le Pen’s base of support, but the rest of the French citizenry is more inclined to say the court’s decision is perfectly reasonable. Additional polling found that 68% of voters considered it normal for Le Pen’s sentence to be effective immediately.
Over 80% of Le Pen’s RN party voters feel the conviction was politically motivated, a stark contrast from the ~40% of all respondents.
While Le Pen and the RN might give the same sort of anti-democratic rhetoric, that doesn’t mean they are going to pursue the same strategies. Philippe Olivier, Le Pen’s brother-in-law and RN member, said “We’re not going to do a Capitol [riot]. We’re going to follow Martin Luther King.” The French voters are not like Americans.
Under Le Pen’s stewardship, the RN has softened its image to effectively widen its appeal. Going full bore against the rule of law and the judiciary risks the party returning to its extremist roots, drawing it closer to Trump at a time when the Trump image is particularly toxic throughout the world.
Case in point: After the verdict, Bardella said the court had “unjustly” convicted Le Pen and in the process “executed” French democracy. Recognizing how extreme this sounded, Bardella took a more measured approach a few days later when he said, “I believe that democracy is the violence of words, never physical violence.” And earlier this year, Bardella was scheduled to speak at the US Conservative Political Action Conference, but cancelled last-minute after Trump’s MAGA ally Steve Bannon performed what Bardella called a “gesture alluding to Nazi ideology” (aka, a Nazi salute).
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There has been some analogizing with the situation in Romania, where Calin Georgescu, the far-right presidential candidate leading in the polls, was controversially banned by the courts from contesting the upcoming election. However, there is a critical difference. Georgescu was barred because of hints of Russian influence that suggested he had violated the law, but he was not tried and convicted in a court of law. Here though, Le Pen was found guilty by the French judicial system and handed a sentence deemed proportional to the crime committed.
But what Le Pen, RN and her supporters are trying to do is sow doubt, not into the veracity of the claims or level of guilt, but in the conviction itself. It raises the question of: should the voters be the arbiter of right and wrong, the decision of the courts irrelevant? At the same time, would it not undermine the rule of law if Le Pen were guilty and the court did not hand down a reasonable punishment?
Politicians are not infallible, and should not be held to higher standards than the rest of the electorate. If the trial was fair and reasonable, and there is nothing to suggest otherwise, I see no reason Le Pen should not be barred from running in 2027.
Former prime minister Alain Juppe was found guilty of a fake jobs scheme. Former presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy were each found guilty of corruption.