Home » Lawfare, French style: Marine Le Pen sentenced and banned from running for five years

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Lawfare, French style: Marine Le Pen sentenced and banned from running for five years — 27 Comments

  1. Is anyone, and I mean anyone, truly surprised that the alleged “rules-based order” is an abject lie from tip to tail through and through?

    At least she hasn’t been shot…yet.

  2. France is no stranger to political violence and revolution. The ruling powers should beware.

    With much of Europe suppressing populist movements with the claim that they’re resurrections of Hitler, and at the same time catering to Muslim immigrants out of fear, they are committing societal suicide. I have to agree with VP Vance that perhaps they are not worth American blood and treasure to defend.

  3. Hoist, petard, some assembly in progress.

    Some appear to have forgotten some of the recent frolics of Putin; nerve gas attack (Novachok) in Salisbury England, poisioning by Polonium in London. Eurocrats may be bad, but they pale by comparisson.

    You know, to that guy on the pony.

  4. France is no stranger to political violence and revolution. The ruling powers should beware.
    ==
    There were reprisals against supposed collaborators after the Germans were run off the premises in 1944. Apart from that, the last instance of notable intramural violence in metropolitan France was in 1871. The last successful revolution was in 1848.

  5. The French situation is considerably more complicated than presented here.

    French politicians of national standing do appear to be frequently convicted of financial shenanigans. Possibly they are really more corrupt, possibly because prosecution is an accepted part of the French political system, but perhaps both.

    Former President Sarkozy was convicted of bribery in 2021 for things he did in 2012, as was Prime Minister Fallon convicted in 2020 for fraud and misuse of funds for things done from about 2002 – 2017: putting his wife and kids on the payroll despite their not doing the work supposedly paid for, something similar to what Le Pen has been convicted of. Former President Jacques Chirac was convicted in 2011 of diverting public funds between 1977 and 1995.

    Marine Le Pen appears to have tried to comply with the relevant law post-2016 when it became clear that it was becoming more stringently enforced, but she couldn’t go back in time and undo anything, of course.

    What’s new is that the sentences can now be implemented before the appeals finish. If there’s lawfare it’s happening there. Normally she’d need to be President or Prime Minister first before she got convicted.

  6. I suspect they’re figuring that substituting another NR politician for Marine will cost the NR just enough votes through abstentions to allow the Davos candidate to squeak through. Lately, polling of hypothetical two-person contests has Marine prevailing by small margins. Recall her father lost to Jacques Chirac in 2002 by a margin of 4.6 to 1 and she herself lost to Macron by 2:1 just eight years ago. The Socialist Party and the Gaullist-Giscardian combine held between them about 85% of the seats in the national legislature in 2012. Now they hold 18%. An electoral revolution has been underway in France.

  7. Former President Sarkozy was convicted of bribery in 2021 for things he did in 2012, as was Prime Minister Fallon convicted in 2020 for fraud and misuse of funds for things done from about 2002 – 2017: putting his wife and kids on the payroll despite their not doing the work supposedly paid for, something similar to what Le Pen has been convicted of. Former President Jacques Chirac was convicted in 2011 of diverting public funds between 1977 and 1995.
    ==
    Amazing how scrupulously honest Socialist Party pols are in France.

  8. And of course across the channel from the “protect democracy” French, the British are punishing the under-7s for… (h/t the Professor’s Place)
    ==
    The work of teachers’ college graduates who landed ed policy jobs; 80% of those types are ruining the reputations of the other 20%.

  9. I do understand what you said. One could, not would, hope it isn’t as bloody this time.

    “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time”, British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey remarked to a friend on the eve of the United Kingdom’s entry into the First World War. First published in Grey’s memoirs in 1925, the statement earned wide attention as an accurate perception of the First World War and its geopolitical and cultural consequences.

  10. A few decades from now folk etymology will hold that “trumped up charges” are named after Donald Trump.

  11. The “establishment” just sealed their own fate.
    What a fantastic mistake!

  12. IrishOtter49: “The lamps are going out all over Europe.”

    That’s my gut feeling too. Certainly in western Europe. Maybe not 1914, but 1936-1939. Stupidity married to fecklessness, weakness, and mutual distrust. All papered over with empty rhetoric and League of Nations-grade delusions.

    Glad my grandparents left and came here. We’ll feel it (as Zelensky put it), but at least we’re on a course correction in this country. The last best hope–if we don’t blow it.

  13. I suspect they’re figuring that substituting another NR politician for Marine will cost the NR just enough votes

    Marine has a niece, Marion, who is politically active and very conservative, though I think she split off from the Le Pen family for a time and founded her own party, so I don’t know if she’s a viable replacement. She happens to be quite attractive.

  14. It would be ironic if Le Pen’s successor wins the general election. She and her father have tried multiple times and lost every time. It seems they just can’t win a general election for reasons that are beyond me so maybe it’s time to try someone else from the right. I’ve seen candidates nominated in this country who were close losers previously and the powers-that-be decided that THIS time it will be different. It wasn’t. Some people just have the air of “loser” about them even if they really aren’t that bad. It’s a brand that sticks.

  15. A sad day for France,
    a sad day for Europe,
    a sad day for Western Civilization.

    At least we are getting a better look at the current war:

    Global elites + the left + special minorities vs. the middle-class + working-class

  16. It would be ironic if Le Pen’s successor wins the general election. She and her father have tried multiple times and lost every time. It seems they just can’t win a general election for reasons that are beyond me so maybe it’s time to try someone else from the right.
    ==
    NR has been improving its position in increments for 50 years. They’ve reached the point where they have a plurality in national parliamentary elections. There have been 17 parliamentary elections under the current constitution. Their performance in popular ballots in 2024 has been exceeded by the Gaullists on four occasions, by the Socialist Party on two occasions, and by UPM / LR on two occasions. No party has ever done as well as they did in 2024 without being the leading performer. Marine has per recent surveys a better-than-even chance of taking the presidency in 2027. There have been eleven popular presidential elections under the current constitution. The office went to the Gaullist candidate five times, the Socialist candidate three times, and the technocratic element three times. She’s been on the verge of accomplishing something that had not been done before. Do try to pay attention.

  17. for a time and founded her own party
    ==
    Marion is a member of Reconquete, Eric Zemmour’s outfit. Marine’s deputy is Jordan Bardella.

  18. Can Germany be far behind in outlawing AfD? If you can’t win at the ballot box, just outlaw the candidates preferred by a plurality.

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