Marine Le Pen leads a party that was founded by Holocaust deniers and former Nazi-collaborators. It speaks of French people of immigrant background as second-class citizens and routinely calls for foreign-born criminals to be expelled from France. It has a long history of damning the presence of fraudsters and convicts in French political life. Le Pen has herself launched legal action to political ends. Her party’s claim, today, to be victim of a weaponized justice system is the height of hypocrisy and double-standards.
Even knowing all these things, it’s probable that the ban on Marine Le Pen running for office will backfire.
The Paris court ruling on Monday, with a sentence applied immediately, means that she cannot stand for election or hold office for five years. A reform introduced in 2016 made this an automatic sentencing requirement for political embezzlement convictions of this kind. Le Pen’s defenders — like her Rassemblement National party’s president, Jordan Bardella — claim that this is an assault by “elites” on democracy itself. A string of right-wing personalities have sought to portray this as a government attack on the main opposition party. This claim is overstated, not least considering that the legal process started fully a decade ago.
No one is above the law, and the court could not rule based on Le Pen’s personal popularity. But banning candidates from running for office due to financial crimes is highly dubious. The damaging effect on the democratic choice seems out of proportion to the crime in question, and (even coupled with a €2 million fine) is ineffective in punishing the party. As left-wing party France Insoumise pointed out in a statement, the Rassemblement National’s claim to be uniquely “clean” and stand against a corrupt establishment is in tatters. But that is for the electorate to judge. France Insoumise added that it had never sought to “use the courts as a means of defeating…
Auteur: David Broder
