The leader of the French far-right party National Rally (RN), Marine Le Pen, has been sentenced to four years in prison (two of them suspended, two under house arrest) and a €100,000 fine, and barred from standing for political office for five years after having been found guilty of being part of a conspiracy to embezzle European Union funds.
Le Pen will almost certainly appeal, so the jail term and the fine will not come into force until that process has been exhausted – which could be a very long way off. The election ban, though, takes effect immediately, scuppering her plans to stand, yet again, for the French presidency in 2027.
Highest profile defendant
Le Pen was the highest profile of 21 defendants convicted of the rip-off, including eight who were Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) at the time of the offences and twelve supposed parliamentary assistants.
The essence of the case was that RN registered assistants for the party’s MEPs on the EU payroll but that these people were rarely if ever seen at the parliament. Although the EU was paying their salaries, they were in reality working not for the MEPs they were fictitiously assigned to but in RN’s central operation, as all-round party hacks.
Flounced out of court
While the French far right has been trying to characterise this as quibbling about roles and duties and a touch petty, the total embezzled from EU taxpayers through the ghost assistant scheme was calculated by prosecutors to be close to €5 million – which is a long way from being petty cash.
Le Pen attended the hearing for only long enough to learn that she had been found guilty and would be barred from elections, then flounced out of court and scuttled off to RN headquarters for a meeting with party president Jordan Bardella.
She did not even wait to hear how long the election ban would last, let along whether prison time or fines would be handed down to any of the convicts.
Disdain for the law
Equally impatient was far-right Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who posted “Je suis Marine” on social media even while the judge was delivering the sentences.
Also posting while sentencing was still ongoing, Bardella emoted “Today, it is not only Marine Le Pen who is being unjustly condemned: it is French democracy that has been executed.” No hyperbole from him, then.
Expect the same kind of reaction from Le Pen’s British admirers, who will doubtless fire up the ‘two-tier justice’ slogan that they roll out when anyone from the far right is convicted of a crime, no matter how cut-and-dried the evidence. What is actually on display is one-tier disdain for the law and crocodile-tear hypocrisy.
Antisemitic baggage
Unless something completely unpredictable occurs in the interim, the 2027 presidential election will be the first in nearly four decades not to have a Le Pen on the ballot paper. Infamous antisemite Jean-Marie Le Pen (who dismissed the Holocaust as “just a detail in the history of World War II”) stood in 1974, 1988, 1995, 2002 and 2007 while daughter Marine was a candidate in 2012, 2017 and 2022.
Le Pen was predicted to do well in the 2027 Presidential contest, with some polls making her the frontrunner. She had softened the party’s image by changing its name from Front National and ditching some of the extremist, antisemitic baggage of her father who founded the FN in 1972. At the moment, it is the biggest single party in the French parliament.
Le Pen will retain her parliamentary seat but will not be able defend it in the event of an election within the next five years. It is likely that, unless the ban is overturned, RN’s presidential candidate will now be the 29-year-old party president Jordan Bardella.
