The right-wing and hard-right politicians air their disagreement with the court ruling handed to Marine Le Pen, the former leader of the National Rally in France. Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán and Georgia Meloni have all thrown their support behind her. But experts say France has become a ‘testbed’ for a new repressive methodology the EU officials have devised to persecute the dissenters. What may this standoff culminate in?
Donald Trump has lambasted the sentence handed to Marine Le Pen, the former leader of the National Rally party. He has mentioned the ruling that prevented the embattled French politician, formerly a frontrunner for a presidential win, from standing for office over the five-year period. Trump has also likened the French court system to that of the US, Bloomberg notes.
Elon Musk has also taken to social media to denounce the sentence as an ‘abuse’ of the legal system. According to the SpaceX and X tycoon, it shows that the ‘radical left’ cannot win at the ballot, hence their need to ‘jail their opponents’.
European right-wing politicians have also aired their grievances and disapproval. Georgia Meloni has weighed in on the subject as well. ‘No one who cares about democracy can rejoice in a sentence that affects the leader of a large party and takes away representation from millions of citizens,’ Politico quotes the Italian prime minister as saying.
Another high-ranking Italian politician, Matteo Salvini, the vice-president of the Council of Ministers, characterises the ruling as Brussels’ declaration of war. According to him, by yanking the top-running candidate off the ballot, the French authorities act in breach of the democratic ethos. He compares the charges to the repression unleashed against Calin Georgescu, a former presidential hopeful in Romania.
Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has also thrown his support behind Le Pen. He has taken to X to write, ‘Je suis Marine!’ The prime minister’s tweet apparently alludes to the now-famous ‘Je suis Charlie’ motto used by the crowd in 2015 to protest the radical Islamist attack on the office of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Another fiery-worded opinion comes from George Simion, a former presidential candidate in Romania, who thinks the French authorities’ persecution of the far-right politician are fit for a ‘totalitarian regime’s playbook’. Meanwhile, the French people are gearing up to mount a series of protests in support of Marine Le Pen. According to Le Figaro, Jordan Bardella, the National Rally’s current president and Le Pen’s closest ally, has announced the distribution of pro-Le Pen leaflets that is slated to take place over the weekend.
However, some of the French publications have sided with the verdict. Political scientist Luc Rouban has said in an interview with The Conversation of France that the sentence ‘represents an effort to make democracy better’. He opines that the punishment is indicative of ‘undeniable progress’ as it shows that politics is now ‘subject to regulations and laws’.
But some beg to disagree. For instance, a Bloomberg piece takes the trouble to emphasise that the precedent set by the French authorities serves to destabilise the already restless political landscape in the republic. Besides, the verdict will foil the effort to overhaul the state financial system.
To recap, Le Pen was sentenced to four years in prison and made ineligible for running in what is a five-year ban. A Paris court found her guilty of embezzling the European Parliament’s funds. The top French right-wing politician has referred to the verdict as the ‘black day for democracy’ and vowed to fight back.
She is willing to challenge the court ruling but she doubts if the appeal will be litigated earlier than the 2027 presidential election as these procedures typically take between a year and half and two years to complete. Importantly, she adds she will not plead with President Macron to pardon her.
‘The Marine Le Pen sentence will have a polarising effect on France and Europe in general,’ comments German political scientist Alexander Rahr. ‘The liberals are praising the step as a stepping stone in a power struggle. The right-wingers, though, view it as an egregious violation of democracy.’ He fears that if this ‘flagrant manipulation’ will pan out in France, other governments and deep state structures – not just the Romanian ones – will follow suit and begin persecuting the ‘enemies of the liberal system’.
The pundit also points to German authorities seeking a ban on the AfD opposition party while Brussels-based officials are calling for the ouster of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. ‘The liberal establishment has declared a war on their rivals,’ Rahr warns. ‘They realise all too well that letting things slide will eventually see the ruling elites defeated at the elections.’
The European political scene has also been buffeted by President Trump siding with the right-wing politicians. The Republican president remembers the deep state attacking him in the past. ‘The Western leaders are hoping that the liberals stateside will oust Trump and reforge the transatlantic consensus,’ the political scientist comments.
This may mean that European countries are entering a fierce battle for the declining elites to stay in power. To Alexander Rahr, it evokes the images of the ‘waning years of the communist rule in the USSR’. The world is headed for a radical shift, whereas the politicians are ill-prepared for sweeping changes.
‘We all know for a fact what happened next. Yet the European liberals are adamant that the second time may be a charm,’ the expert says. He believes that spearheaded by Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas, the EU will pick Emmanuel Macron’s side, which will further be boosted by Germany and the UK rallying behind it.
Rahr goes on to emphasise: ‘Georgia Meloni, a Marine Le Pen supporter, is now being isolated, browbeaten and schooled. The same tactic was already applied to Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico. Some of Europe’s deep state structures may even opt for a state of emergency if the liberals are to be seriously challenged by the opposition forces.’
According to Stanislav Tkachenko, a St Petersburg-based scholar and professor of political science, France and Romania have been turned into testbeds to hone the new tactic of tackling European dissenters. ‘Brussels will soon start issuing it as a recommendation to the countries that feature strong-polling rivals to the mainstream parties,’ he opines.
Germany’s AfD and the Italian Cabinet may well be the most vulnerable of all of them. The EU is enforcing a unification campaign where the dissidents questioning the Brussels-born narratives are being silenced. The academic believes this unification is being spurred by several concurrent trends.
‘First, the EU bureaucracy is heedful of the fact that the right-wing parties are winning over the voters across Europe,’ he points out. ‘To avoid losing power, they need to step up the pressure on their opponents. Any politician refusing to fall in line becomes a dangerous liability for Brussels.’
The second trend he identifies is Europe attempting to leverage the ‘Russia scare’ to quell any dissent. The imaginary threat fuels the need for integrated defence. But the souring relations with the US catapults it even further. To address these issues, the European Commission has vowed to step up their grip on power.
But the big question is the impact the Brussels new policy will have on the EU countries’ domestic environment. ‘France is likely to evade a large-scale crisis,’ says the expert. ‘But the overt repression targeting the opposition may backfire on the EU big time.’