Following the judgement issued by a French court today, Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right Rassemblement National, has been sentenced to an immediate five year ban on running for political office, four years imprisonment (two years with an electronic tag, two years suspended), and a €100,000 fine.
The court found that Le Pen headed up an extensive scheme, spanning a remarkable 12 years, to illegally redirect millions of euros away from the European Parliament funds intended for parliamentary assistants, to the benefit of her political party. The sentence has effectively ended her bid to become France’s president in 2027.
Fake-job scam on an unprecedented scale
Le Pen, along with 24 other members of her party, was found guilty of a vast fake-jobs scam, funneling money earmarked for parliamentary aides in Strasbourg to pay party workers in France, enabling her to finance a considerable expansion of her domestic political activities. The fraud covered contracts in place between 2004 and 2016, involving nine MEPs and 12 parliamentary assistants, making it the most extensive scheme of its kind in terms of scale and duration. The extent of the fraud was reflected in the severity of the court’s judgement today.
A dynasty derailed
For over 50 years, the Le Pen family has been at the helm of the controversial Rassemblement National Party (formerly Front National) on the far right of French politics. The party was founded by her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972, along with extreme far-right colleagues such as Pierre Bousquet, a former Waffen-SS section leader, and holocaust denier François Duprat. Jean-Marie notoriously described WW2 gas chambers as just a “detail” in the history of the war, and he admitted to personally torturing prisoners during the war in Algeria in the 1950s.
Since taking over from him in 2011, Marine Le Pen has tried hard to soften the edges of the party, going so far as to rename it and expel her father. Her attempts to ‘dédéabolise’ the party in order to make it more palatable to the French mainstream have coincided with a global rise of the far right. The increasing normalisation of far-right politics across the world has considerably helped her cause making her party appear less extreme, and in the last two presidential races she made it through to the final round against incumbent Emmanuel Macron.
The French constitution bars Macron from standing for a third term, and with no notable figures to oppose her, recent polls suggested that Le Pen had a reasonable chance of victory in 2027.
Those hopes are now dashed with little hope of being revived and this represents a significant personal blow for Le Pen.
A political disaster for Le Pen, a gift for Macron
For Macron personally, the centrists and the left, this judgement is a gift. Over the past year, emboldened by electoral success, Le Pen and her party have used the threat of ‘censure’ to hold an iron grip on the government – threatening to instigate an act similar to a vote of no-confidence in the government, if not happy with policy or legislative initiatives. This has the effect of closing down parliament and instigating national elections.
Although she can keep her current position of député of the assembly, she cannot run in any future election for a period of five years which means she would be effectively kicking herself out of government if a movement of ‘censure’ was made. This will have a neutering effect on the political tactics available to the Rassemblement National. Similarly, though unlikely, Macron could dissolve parliament again as he did last year, and this would end Le Pen’s parliamentary career until 2030 and in so doing, remove a considerable thorn in his side.
Le Pen and Russia
The timing of this verdict could not be better for Macron. Even before she took over the party, it has been accused of having too close a relationship with the Kremlin. But the ideological alignment has accelerated since Le Pen assumed the leadership. She has met Vladimir Putin several times, supported his annexation of Crimea, and was in receipt of a €9mn loan from Russian banks at a time when French banks were reluctant to be associated with her party.
In 2023, in a bid to clear its name, the Rassemblement National set up a cross-party parliamentary inquiry to investigate foreign influence in French politics. Unfortunately for Le Pen the gesture backfired, as the leaked draft of the report concluded that her political stances often “echo the official language of the Kremlin” and revealed frequent meetings between Rassemblement National representatives and Russian officials. Along with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, the Kremlin was the first to send messages of support to Le Pen following the verdict this morning.
Macron, alongside Keir Starmer, is heading up Europe’s resistance to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Diminishing the prospects of a Putin sympathiser in the presidential palace is a huge win for Macron.
The predictable backlash – a populist parade
Brazil’s disgraced former president, Jair Bolsonaro, himself banned from running for public office for eight years and awaiting trial for attempting a coup d’état, has expressed his support for Le Pen. Elon Musk is leading the MAGA charge planning to make Le Pen a ‘cause célèbre’, stating:
“When the radical left can’t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents. This is their standard playbook throughout the world”.
Other supporters include the Dutch far-right party leader Geert Wilders, Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, and of course Reform UK Ltd leader Nigel Farage.
Elsewhere, people were pleased to see justice served. Many have sardonically observed that as a supporter of tough justice and harsh sentences, she really shouldn’t complain. In fact, Le Pen has previously advocated lifetime bans from public life for such offences, so by her reckoning, she got off lightly.
As Le Pen herself asserted with such emotion: “the French are absolutely fed up with politicians embezzling public money!”
That was in 2004, just as she embarked on a scheme to do just that.
The end of an era
Le Pen can and will appeal the verdict. But it is unlikely to happen in time to change her fortunes in terms of running for president. Her replacement as a candidate is unsure. The Rassemblement National president Jordan Bardella being groomed for future glory is only 29 and lacks experience. Le Pen is the embodiment of the party and an iconic figure of the far right at home and abroad.
The backlash will be brutal, especially with Musk at the helm, but the judges must have expected as much. As the Rassemblement National launch a petition and call for their supporters to a “peaceful mobilisation”, this story is far from over and its reverberations will be far and wide.
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