EVEN BEFORE the sentence was pronounced, Marine Le Pen swept out of the courtroom, her handbag dangling from her arm. The French hard-right leader had heard enough, and had reason to fear the worst. On March 31st the Paris criminal court barred her from running for elected office for five years, and hence from making a bid for the presidency in 2027. The decision has sent a shock wave through her party, the National Rally (RN), and upends the race to succeed Emmanuel Macron as president. Ms Le Pen had led polls for the first round of the 2027 election.
Judges found Ms Le Pen, along with eight other current or former members of the European Parliament and 12 former assistants, guilty of the misuse of public funds to the tune of €4.1m ($4.4m). The court ruled that there was no personal enrichment involved for her or fellow party figures. But it placed her “at the heart” of a system which, between 2004 and 2016, used funds from the EU’s assembly to finance her national party. One paid parliamentary assistant, said the judges, had never lived in Brussels. Ms Le Pen was also ordered to pay a €100,000 fine and given a prison sentence of four years, two of them suspended and two under a form of house arrest, using an electronic bracelet.
Ms Le Pen was visibly furious at the decision. The ruling was unusually harsh for carrying an immediate sentence, which applies even if and while she appeals. This was requested by the public prosecutors after the trial hearing closed last November. Yet some of the RN leader’s co-accused were barred from electoral campaigns only for shorter periods; Louis Aliot, the mayor of Perpignan and member of the party’s national bureau, was not given an immediate sentence at all. Earlier this month Ms Le Pen had said that she would consider such an outcome for herself “profoundly anti-democratic”. After the decision Jordan Bardella, her 29-year-old protégé, declared that “French democracy has been executed”.
There are few options available to Ms Le Pen to rescue her presidential chances. Even if she appeals, there is no certainty that a hearing could take place in time either to overturn the court ruling or to lighten the sentence. She may be able to appeal to the country’s constitutional council, the highest constitutional body, for a suspension of the ruling, on the grounds of respecting the freedom of the electorate.
In the meantime the RN has been thrown into disarray. Party figures were not prepared for the severity of the sentence, and had no Plan B. The fiercely ambitious Mr Bardella is a smooth operator and a TikTok star. But he had been preparing himself to become her prime minister, not president. Even party insiders recognise that he is not yet ready. He may, however, be their best option. A poll released before the court decision rated him the third-most popular politician in France, after Ms Le Pen and Edouard Philippe, a centrist former prime minister.
In the short run, Ms Le Pen could revive her role as troublemaker for the minority French government, now led by François Bayrou, a centrist. Last December it was her party’s vote that helped to topple his centre-right predecessor, Michel Barnier, and torpedo the 2025 budget. Bringing down another government, or threatening to do so, might be a good way for Ms Le Pen to vent her anger at the system. It is notable that her vote in December followed the prosecutors’ decision to seek an immediate ban on her running for office.
In the longer run, Ms Le Pen’s ban could have two consequences for the party’s electoral chances. The details of the misuse of funds that have emerged during the trial could damage the RN’s standing among its newer voters, who have been won round by her attempt over the past decade to make the formerly fringe party look respectable. This, along with Mr Bardella’s inexperience, might damage its prospects.
For Ms Le Pen’s core voters, however, long drawn to her anti-establishment message, the ruling could nourish the feeling that the system is against her party. At a time when populist politicians, both in Europe and America, are railing against what they see as anti-democratic censorship, that could prove to be a powerful force.■
