Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far right and a leading candidate to become the country’s next president, has been barred from running for public office for five years, after she and her party were convicted of embezzling millions of euros of European Union funds.
Ms. Le Pen, an anti-immigrant, populist politician, was also sentenced to four years in prison — with two years suspended and two that could be served under house arrest — and fined 100,000 euros, or about $108,000. She has consistently denied any wrongdoing and will appeal the verdict, which would put her jail sentence and the fine on hold.
But the ruling against Ms. Le Pen and her party, the National Rally, threatens to ruin her plans to run for the presidency in 2027. She has spent years trying to soften her party’s image and move it into the mainstream by disavowing its antisemitic roots after succeeding her father as leader of France’s far right.
Who is Marine Le Pen?
Ms. Le Pen, 56, became the face of France’s far right after taking over the party in 2011 from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Ms. Le Pen has sought to detoxify the political movement he built by softening some of its policies, changing the name of the party from the National Front to the National Rally, publicly rejecting her father’s antisemitism — he was convicted by a French court of Holocaust denial for saying that the Nazi gas chambers were a “detail” of history — and trying to court disaffected voters.
But even if the tone has changed, Ms. Le Pen’s platform is still staunchly hard right. Her policies include using severe measures to curb immigration and pushing for French-born citizens to have more rights to social benefits and other areas of state support, even though some argue that this could violate the French Constitution.
Ms. Le Pen has run for the country’s highest office three times, and although she has yet to win she has succeeded in steadily increasing her share of the vote and expanding her party’s reach. In the last presidential election in 2022, she won 41.5 percent of the vote, up from 33.9 percent in the previous election five years earlier.
Last year, the National Rally became the biggest single party in the National Assembly, the country’s lower house of Parliament, for the first time.
What were the charges?
A French criminal court ruled that Ms. Le Pen played a “central role” in an illegal scheme by the party, when it was still called the National Front, to use the equivalent of almost $5 million of European Parliament funds for party expenses between 2004 and 2016. The party was short of cash at the time, and Ms. Le Pen was a Member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2017.
The court found that the party used European Parliament funds to pay assistants to National Front members of the body for work that was unrelated to E.U. business. The judges rejected Ms. Le Pen’s argument that it was appropriate for the assistants to do party-related work.
Bénédicte de Perthuis, the presiding judge, called the ban necessary because of the seriousness of the charges and the fact that the accused seemed unwilling to acknowledge the facts. The court has to “ensure that elected officials, like any citizen, do not benefit from any favorable treatment,” she said.
Ms. Le Pen has called the case a political witch hunt.
What’s next for Ms. Le Pen and her party?
Ms. Le Pen left the court before the full verdict was read out and did not address reporters as she departed. She is set to speak on French television later on Monday.
The ruling does not strip her of her seat in the National Assembly, but Ms. Le Pen will only be able to run for president in 2027 if she secures a more favorable ruling on appeal before the deadline to enter the race. But even a successful appeal could take some time.
The court also ruled that the National Rally had to pay a 2 million euro fine, half of which would be suspended. Twenty-three other people were convicted on charges related to the scheme to embezzle European Parliament funds.
The ruling does not bar Jordan Bardella, Ms. Le Pen’s 29-year-old protégé, from running for president in her absence. He is seen as the leading alternative candidate.
Where does this leave France?
The ruling could reignite the political chaos that roiled France last year after President Emmanuel Macron called snap elections. The French government is not popular, and struggled to pass a budget this year. It could be toppled by lawmakers in the National Assembly.
Ms. Le Pen and the National Rally could also paint the verdict as a threat against a popular politician and party, and French democracy itself.
Content Source: www.nytimes.com