Aftershocks are still being felt in France from what one political analyst told Fox News was a “political earthquake” there this week. Popular right-wing politician Marine Le Pen was convicted of embezzlement by a French court and barred from running for office for five years.
Speaking to her followers on Tuesday, Le Pen claimed that “the system” had used a “nuclear bomb” to thwart her attempts to become French president.
Le Pen and her National Rally party have been hard on immigration, crime and other hot-button issues. They now have the most seats in the French parliament. She got 11 million votes when she ran (and lost) against Emmanuel Macron last time. Current polls had her winning the top job in a vote set for 2027. For now, she’s blocked. She says she’ll appeal.
“We won’t give in,” she declared today.
All of this, according to Le Pen supporters and many others, is due to a left-leaning court system taking away a mandate from the people.
Le Pen’s young party associate and possible replacement presidential candidate, Jordan Bardella, spoke Tuesday on the radio of a “tyranny of judges…everything had been done to keep us from power.”
One of the French prosecutors in the case, Remy Heitz, defended the ruling Tuesday, saying “this is not a political decision but a legal one.”
Le Pen and her party colleagues were found guilty of misusing European Union money to fund her French party activities. The conviction also carries with it a fine and a period of house arrest.
The hitch is, the odds are against Le Pen winning the appeal and it would take time.
“I’m not too optimistic about the appeal,” French political analyst Christian Malard told Fox News, “and if it doesn’t work in the way she would be expecting, politically it would mean she’s ‘dead.'”
Le Pen is a well-known champion of right-wing causes around the world and there was reaction internationally as well.
Last night at a press conference in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump noted, “That’s a very big deal.” Adding that questions about the courts’ role in politics “…sounds like this country, it sounds very much like this country.”
Protests are being called for this weekend by the National Rally to channel what is thought to be widespread upset about Le Pen being at least temporarily yanked from the political stage.
As analyst Malard noted, “Disenfranchised is the word… we will see if there is reaction in the street.”
Or we will see if Le Pen just bides her time. Even if her appeal fails, she’ll be able to run for office again when she’s 61. Young enough, in many countries, to still go for the leadership role!
