In a move that can only be described as shocking, a French court has sentenced National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen to multiple years in prison. She has also been banned from running in the 2027 election, with no ability to suspend that part of the sentence during an appeal. 

PARIS—A French court convicted Marine Le Pen of misusing European Union funds, banning her from the next presidential election in a ruling that shakes the country’s political landscape.

Judges handed down a sentence Monday that bars Le Pen from seeking public office for the next five years, upending France’s political order and thrusting her far-right party into limbo. Le Pen also received a four-year prison sentence. Half of that term was suspended, judges said, adding that she could serve the remaining two years by using an electronic bracelet or other alternatives to jail time.

This news is justifiably leading to accusations of lawfare, given the recent prevalence of European countries banning ascendent right-wing political opponents. After making large gains in the last election, polling has shown Le Pen and her party leading the pack in 2027.

The nuts and bolts revolve around a charge of "embezzlement," claiming that aides to Le Pen conducted party work while also being paid to do EU parliamentary work. Not being an expert on French law, I'll allow someone else with more knowledge to explain. 

So Marine Le Pen is sentenced to
- "Ineligbility" (unable to run for elected office) for 5 years with "provisory execution" (meaning the sentence must be served even during appeal--inexplicable, the judge only said "it appears necessary" to impose provisory execution)
- 100 000… https://t.co/D0C1B65OgG

— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) March 31, 2025

They could have fined her for improper use of parliamentary funds. That would have been defensible. Ineligibility and house arrest are inexplicable except as pure politics.

— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) March 31, 2025

In other words, this doesn't really come down to a question of guilt or innocence. It's about the degree to which Le Pen was targeted and the motives behind it. There is ample evidence of aides doing this as common practice, and to turn what should have been a simple fine into banning the French left's primary political opponent from running for office appears to be purely political. 

I’m sure Le Pen was mixing party and parliamentary funds. But the thing is: a) so does everyone else in the EU parliament; b) the elevation of this into “embezzlement” is absurd and cynical; and c) the sentence is clearly pretextual. It may well be overturned at appeal.

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) March 31, 2025

We've seen such gambits already succeed in Romania and Brazil, and one is still in progress in Israel. Of course, then there's what happened to President Donald Trump in the United States, which only failed because voters made sure of it. Using campaign finance laws in an attempt to forbid right-wing candidates from winning elections has become a common tactic on the left, and Europe, specifically, has had no qualms going all the way with it. 

I suspect the backlash from this won't be pretty, nor should it be. To take a small, ancillary accusation related to something Le Pen's aides did and turn it into an unprecedented sentence against a popular political opponent is the stuff of banana republics. Whether this is overturned on appeal or not, the fact that it ever happened is another troubling sign for France and the EU as a whole.

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