A couple of weeks ago I referenced the remarks delivered by Vice-President J.D. Vance to the Munich Security Conference. He noted that the greatest threat to European democracy was “from within.” Specifically, many governing elites were so anxious about the erosion of their own legitimacy that they thought that shutting down dissenting voices was the only way to retain power.
Back then, the German defence minister said Vance’s reflections were “unacceptable” because he interpreted them as an endorsement of the populist Alternative for Germany party (AfD), conventionally called a “far right” party.
Earlier this week it was France’s turn to be disciplined. This time the French establishment condemned the “far right” populist Rassemblement National, the “National Rally,” or RN. The target was the RN leader, Marine LePen.
A generation ago, she took over the National Front from her father, Jean-Marie, who was a Foreign Legion veteran of France’s decolonization wars in Viet Nam and Algeria, both of which ended with the independence of those countries. Jean-Marie grew increasingly unpleasant in statements critical of Muslim immigration to France. His antisemitic remarks revealed him to be a balanced and equal-opportunity bigot. He was also very much opposed to the European Union.
When Marine look over the National Front, she began a process of moderating the party’s policies. She called it “dédiabolisation,” or de-demonization that was eventually rewarded last summer when the RN gained 11 million votes in the election and the largest number of seats in the French parliament, though still not a majority.
She also ran for the office of President of the Republic in 2012, 2017, and 2022, each time gaining more votes, and was considered the front-runner for the 2027 election. As with her father, Marine LePen’s consistent message has been anti-globalist, anti-immigration, and (gasp!) anti-EU.
As has been true of other European leaders critical of Brussels — think of Calin Georgescu in Rumania, Viktor Orbán in Hungary or, of course, AfD in Germany — there was only one possible response: ensure that she never became the French president. But how?
By imitating the desperate action by a besieged establishment pioneered on the other side of the Atlantic: lawfare. It didn’t work for the Democrats against President Trump, but maybe it could work against smaller fish such as LePen.
She was accused of misusing EU money when she hired four assistants and had them work for her party. To state the obvious: there was considerable overlap in their jobs working for RA Members of the European Parliament and for the party itself.
To normal people, this looked like selective enforcement of opaque financial rules about which most French citizens were completely unaware. According to the investigative news organization, Follow the Money, about 20% of European parliamentarians did what LePen is charged with doing. One of her colleagues, Bruno Gollnisch, said that what the RN did was “perfectly natural and a common practice” in the European Parliament.
The presiding magistrate, blessed with the very aristocratic name, Bénédicte de Perthuis, said LePen had presided over an “embezzlement system,” a term picked up by the European and North American legacy media.
In addition, she was fined €100,000 and given four years in jail, two of which were suspended and two of which were to be served by electronic monitoring using an ankle bracelet. The worst of her punishment, which was the whole purpose of the litigation, was a five-year ban on political office-seeking. That would bar her from the 2027 presidential election.
Maître de Perthuis did not provide any explanation for the punishment he administered.
There were other anomalies as well. Usually when MPs in the European parliament are convicted as LePen had been, the charges are dropped when the allegedly illegally used funds are repaid. Not this time. Prosecutors found allegations of misused funds going back twenty years and then overlooked the fact that the RN repaid €300,000 to the European Parliament in 2023.
The French are apparently not used to lawfare, unlike the Americans. In this country, of course, we can rely on the Government of Canada to suppress any investigation right from the start — as with Chinese interference in elections or the corruptive stench of the SNC-Lavalin scandal. French innocence may explain why LePen was surprised by the verdict. She said she was “scandalized” and “indignant” not at the finding regarding the use of funds but at the ban on her running for President, which she called “vengeance.”
This, she said, was a “political decision” and a “blow to democracy.” What would happen, she asked, if she were eventually acquitted on appeal after an election in which she could not participate?
The question answers itself: that was the whole point of the exercise.
Responses to the verdict were predictable.
Nigel Farage, who leads the Reform UK Party, said “I don’t see how it could be possible that the only people that have ever been in breach of EU funding rules are Eurosceptics. It’s just not possible.”
Viktor Orbán tweeted: “Je suis Marine.”
Elon Musk introduced the wider issue: “When the radical left can’t win via democratic votes, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents. This is their standard playbook throughout the world.” He added that French lawfare will be as great a failure as had been the legal attacks on President Trump.
Matteo Salvini, the Italian deputy prime minister, agreed with Musk. “People who are afraid of the judgement of the voters are often reassured by the judgement of the courts.”
Even Roger Cohen, Paris bureau chief for the very woke New York Times warned that LePen, “like it or not, may become another element in the Vance-Musk case for European democratic failure.”
Indeed. What else could she be?
Consider again: what was her real crime against the French deep state? It was being a right-wing populist and being popular. The French deep state, one of the deepest in Europe, cannot abide such a thing. Nor can the legacy media.
True, the RN supports controversial policies, but LePen has also shown she has purged the party of the most obnoxious ones. And in any event, is it not self-evident they are no worse that those of the radical socialist left?
If the French deep state hadn’t noticed, here is an obvious thing to bear in mind: all around the globe, when right-wing populists are subjected to lawfare, to bullying from the state, their popularity increases.
Is the French left and the French establishment so stupid as to think France will prove to be an exception? I guess so.
