Marine Le Pen: will her conviction fuel the far-right?

Far-right leaders including Viktor Orban, Matteo Salvini, Geert Wilders and even a spokesperson for Vladimir Putin have rushed to brand Marine Le Pen's conviction for embezzling EU funds to pay National Rally (RN) party staff "a conspiracy to take out one of the continent's most prominent illiberal figures", said the FT.

Le Pen is calling it an attack on "the will of the people", much like US President Donald Trump's claims that he is the victim of a "witch hunt", said CNN's Dominic Thomas. And indeed, for supporters of Le Pen's party, the ruling bolsters a belief that "the system is rigged against them".

Beyond France

Populist politicians have been keen to align the verdict with Romania's recent ban of far-right candidate Călin Georgescu from its presidential race. Sławomir Mentzen, who leads Poland's far-right Confederation party, said it was "the second time after Romania that the system has removed candidates who might pose a threat to it".

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Uneasiness with the verdict extends beyond Le Pen's political stablemates, too. "This is lawfare," said James Tidmarsh in The Spectator. Many European Parliament staff routinely work for their national parties without attracting notice, giving the impression that the rule under which Le Pen was found guilty "only seems to be enforced when politically useful". When an obscure law is "weaponised" to remove a candidate from the ballot, you have a "legitimacy crisis" for democracy.

The backlash shows how tricky it is for any court to enforce the rule of law on popular politicians. Even some figures on the left were critical of the decision: Greek economist and former politician Yanis Varoufakis wrote on X: "France's neo-fascists will only benefit from this."

Isn't it ironic?

But, said French Liberal MEP Pascal Canfin on X: "The RN had only one thing to do to avoid finding itself in this situation: not cheat."

During Le Pen's rise to power she styled herself as an anti-corruption crusader, calling for tougher sentences for politicians who commit any financial impropriety. "Everyone has taken money from the till except the Front National," she said in 2004.

The court heard that the RN treated the European Parliament like a "cash cow" and that some of the bogus parliamentary staff had never met the MEPs for whom they ostensibly worked nor been to Brussels, said The Guardian. Even so, it's likely that Le Pen's core supporters will continue to back her: the strong sentence serves the "victimisation narrative" she is presenting to her supporters, just like Trump's criminal convictions. But Le Pen has long tried to make her party appear more mainstream and respectable among moderate voters beyond the party's core base. "That endeavour is now damaged, even if she positions herself as a victim."