French National Assembly party presidential candidate Marine Le pen, along with eight MEPs, has been sentenced on charges of abuse of power and embezzlement of European Union funds.
The court’s verdict of four years in prison and a five-year restriction on the right to run for the cabinet has raised questions about European democracy, with critics describing the sentence as a political reprisal and an attempt by President Emmanuel Macron to get rid of a political rival.
The prosecution alleged that Le Pen had arranged sham positions of assistant MEPs for people who were actually carrying out tasks for the party she led. According to the prosecutor’s office, Marine Le Pen expanded the network of fictitious employees created by her father Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Notably, the party’s deputies did not embezzle the money, as the prosecutor’s office insisted, but used it to pay for the work that the assistants did for them on behalf of the National Rally party, not the European Parliament. However, the substance of the accusation remains unclear, as parliamentary assistants often work both for the European Parliament and for a particular party.
Experts predict new crackdown on national-oriented European leaders amid trade wars with Trump. Critics of the European Union may use reputation scandals in an attempt to oust the authorities by pointing to ineffective foreign and domestic policies, experts warn.
Moving away from traditional “far-right”
Marine Le Pen has tried to adapt to public opinion in France by changing the party’s agenda, and her attempt to change the party’s previous image was motivated by a desire to move away from “far-right” rhetoric. To evade criticism of racism, she has also recruited North Africans into the party, with some of her bodyguards hailing from Algeria and Morocco.
Other national parties in Europe, such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) and the Sweden Democrats, have adopted a similar strategy. To increase popularity, these parties have begun to raise sensitive social issues such as the environment, cost of living and migration.
However, the tendency to promote national-oriented parties causes concern among European democrats. On several occasions, political retaliation has been used against European politicians. For example, the FPO leader was sidelined because of a political scandal, and some AfD activists suffered violent attacks.
While Le Pen is sentenced to prison, former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was forgiven for his bank fraud. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also escaped investigations into corruption schemes.
Decline of European democracy
So far, the only winner of the Le Pen scandal remains French President Emmanuel Macron, whose ratings are falling amid a failed domestic policy and ineffective initiatives to end the war in Ukraine.
Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini wrote on social media that what was happening resembled “a bad film that we have already seen in other countries, such as Romania.” In November 2024, candidate Călin Georgescu won the first round of Romania’s presidential election, but the results were soon cancelled under questionable pretext. After a protest by Georgescu’s supporters, the politician was arrested, released after some time, but then refused to register for a repeat election.
In the case of Marine Le Pen, the same tactic was used to prevent the politician from entering the elections, where he or she could have won. Here, as in Romania, the courts were involved.
As soon as the National Rally party became a serious political force, and Marine Le Pen, who is now leading in opinion polls, began to seriously aspire to be the next president of France, she was immediately deprived of her political future.
A few weeks ago in the German parliament, MPs called for the banning of the AfD party, which is experiencing the best time of public support. While the Greens insisted on outlawing the party, deputies from other factions tried to file an appeal to the Constitutional Court to declare the party unconstitutional. The case of Le Pen showed that it is enough to find a plausible excuse to remove a politician undesirable to European diplomacy from the race.
THE ARTICLE IS THE AUTHOR’S SPECULATION AND DOES NOT CLAIM TO BE TRUE. ALL INFORMATION IS TAKEN FROM OPEN SOURCES. THE AUTHOR DOES NOT IMPOSE ANY SUBJECTIVE CONCLUSIONS.
Laurent Révial for Head-Post.com
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