Marine Le Pen, the well-known French far-right leader who ran for president three times and earned an unprecedented score for her Rassemblement National (National Rally) party in the 2022 election, has been barred from running for office for the next five years by a French criminal court.
Prosecuted for embezzlement of public funds and complicity in the embezzlement of public funds, Le Pen was also sentenced to four years in prison, including two years during which she will be forced to wear an electronic bracelet. She’s also received a fine of 100,000 euros. Within an hour of the verdict, Le Pen’s lawyer announced she will file an appeal.
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Le Pen, who is the president of the Rassemblement National deputies in the National Assembly, had vowed to thrive in the 2027 race. As a result of the sentence, she won’t be allowed to run in neither the presidential nor the legislative elections.
Le Pen has been accused of having hired four “fictitious” assistants when was a member of European Parliament from 2004 to 2017 who allegedly worked for the Front National (which was rebranded as Rassemblement National in 2018). As such, the assistants were paid by the European Parliament rather than her own party.
In his verdict, the criminal court argued that Le Pen played a ‘central role’ in the alleged embezzlement scheme and said it had ‘taken into consideration, in addition to the risk of recidivism, the major disturbance to public order, in this case the fact that a person already convicted at first instance is a candidate in the presidential election,” according to Le Monde.
With Le Pen ousted from potential candidates in the next presidential election, Jordan Bardella, the popular 28-year-old president of the National Rally party who led the European elections in 2024, is expected to build on the momentum that the far right has experienced in recent years. Bardella reacted to Le Pen’s sentence, saying, “Today it is not only Marine Le Pen who was unjustly condemned: It was French democracy that was killed.” Bardella recently made headlines after cancelling his presence at the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington on Feb. 21 in reaction to Steve Bannon’s gesture which he said alluded to Nazi ideology. Bannon then reacted to Bardella’s cancellation, telling Le Monde, “If he cancels, it means he’s not fit to lead, he has no guts. He needs to grow up … If that’s true, there’s no chance he’ll lead France. Zero chance.”
While Le Pen lost the last presidential election with an 17-point gap behind Macron, the French far-right party has never been closer to entering the government. Le Pen, who’s played a key role in rebranding the party to broaden its appeal, has led the far right to grow support during the last three presidential elections, evolving from 17,9 % in 2012 to 34 % in 2017 and near 42 % in 2022. Elsewhere in Europe, far right and populist parties have also made historic gains. As many as seven European countries – Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Slovakia — have far right parties in their respective government.
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