'Her supporters fancifully compared her to the murdered Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.' Photo: Horacio Villalobos/Getty.
With Marine Le Pen’s conviction for embezzlement on Monday, France has become the latest country to have a national political campaign take a detour into the law courts. In the USA, the first phase of last year’s presidential election centred on Donald Trump’s successful manoeuvres to delay the most serious criminal procedures against him. Now the shape of France’s 2027 campaign hinges on whether Le Pen can successfully appeal her prison sentence and a five-year banishment from political life. A decision from the Paris Court of Appeals is expected in the summer of 2026.
For the moment, Le Pen’s chances of success look slim. Her National Rally party was caught red-handed illegally diverting into party coffers more than €4 million designated for the support of its European Parliament delegation. But regardless of the case’s ultimate outcome, it will very likely generate a stress test for French democracy, heightening polarisation and threatening the legitimacy of key institutions. As we have seen from similar cases around the world, even when trials of political figures are fully warranted, the results for democracy can still be disastrous.
First consider the American cases. In the eyes of most Democrats, the procedures against Trump proved that he was a corrupt, criminal figure, entirely unfit to hold high office. On the principle that no person is above the law, they believed he deserved trial and conviction for trying to overthrow the US government, for criminally mishandling secret government documents, and for illegally bribing a porn star to stay quiet about an affair. And they had a strong case. Many of them also supported the Colorado Supreme Court when it dubiously attempted, without a trial, to bar Trump from the state’s presidential ballot on the grounds that the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment prohibits insurrectionists from running for office (the US Supreme Court overruled that decision last March).
For most Republicans, on the other hand, it was not Trump that the trials called into question, but the justice system itself. It had been corrupted, weaponised, and transformed into a vehicle of “lawfare”. Trump’s offences, they believed, were either a figment of the liberal imagination, or trivial, the sort of harmless peccadillos that would have earned anyone else only the lightest possible reprimand. An old hand at evading prosecution, Trump ultimately slithered out of all but one set of indictments — the bribery charges on which a New York City jury found him guilty, but which failed to hurt him in the polls or lead to a prison sentence. But Trump’s success did nothing to quell his supporters’ suspicions of the legal system — or of the federal government in general.
Procedures of this sort are all the more fraught because the law is never entirely neutral — in real life, an entirely abstract and objective set of rules never applies to all in exactly the same manner. In practice, prosecutors always enjoy discretion as to whether to prosecute, and how to prosecute. It is hardly unheard of for them to seek an excessively severe penalty for a lesser offence because they don’t think they can obtain a conviction for a more serious one. It would be nice to think that political considerations never influence their decisions, but when prosecutors from one party target defendants from another, suspicions of political motivation can be hard to dismiss. In the case of the Manhattan “hush money” case, even many liberal commentators criticised District Attorney Alvin Bragg for overreach.
To be sure, the Democrats hardly have a monopoly on possible prosecutorial overreach. When Attorney General Pam Bondi recently threatened to charge people caught destroying Teslas with “domestic terrorism”, she zoomed straight past mere overreach into flagrant prosecutorial abuse. Trump’s blithe forgiveness of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for endangering American pilots in “Signalgate”, after threatening ad nauseam to have Hillary Clinton “locked up” for a far less serious breach of national security, is only the most recent example of his own massive hypocrisy when it comes to the justice system.
Another depressing example of how even entirely justified trials of politicians can corrode democracy comes from Israel. In 2019, a court indicted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on well-substantiated charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Of course, Netanyahu and his conservative base claimed that the prosecution was both baseless and politically motivated. Even as the legal procedures ground on (they have not yet reached a conclusion), Netanyahu’s government proposed sweeping changes to the Israeli judiciary, which would strip the court system of much of its autonomy. These moves, clearly related to Netanyahu’s own vested interest in staying out of jail, prompted the largest protests in Israeli history, and further polarisation of an already furiously divided country. Last week, Netanyahu upped the ante even more by moving to dismiss Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who had opposed his changes to the judiciary. Today, with Netanyahu all the more desperate to stay in power to avoid not only the corruption trial, but answering for Israel’s horrific intelligence and defence failures on October 7, Israeli democracy looks more fragile than ever.
Yet another recent example comes from Romania, where in November the constitutional court annulled the first round of voting in the presidential election because of blatant Russian interference. Last month, the country’s electoral commission followed up on the decision by barring independent Right-wing candidate Călin Georgescu, who had come first in that vote, from a future ballot. The events risk deepening the country’s political turmoil.
The case of Marine Le Pen could well produce a similar outcome in France, even as it illustrates a related problem with the prosecution of political figures. The fact is that standards as to what constitutes corruption have changed greatly in the past two decades or so. Through the end of the 20th century, France’s Fifth Republic tended to treat certain forms of relatively petty corruption essentially as perks of office. During François Mitterrand’s two terms as president, his mistress and their daughter lived rent free in a spacious government apartment. The fact was widely known in Parisian circles but prompted no judicial action. No-show parliamentary jobs served as a convenient way of steering extra funds into party coffers or family pockets. But in the past quarter-century, what was once winked at has become sternly punished. In 2011, a Paris court found former president Jacques Chirac guilty of embezzlement in a case involving no-show jobs and gave him a two-year suspended prison sentence. Courts have now found Chirac’s successor Nicolas Sarkozy guilty in two separate corruption cases. With Sarkozy already under a version of house arrest, and wearing an electronic bracelet, authorities this past week requested a seven-year prison term for him for accepting illegal Libyan assistance in his 2007 presidential campaign.
Ironically, one of the political figures who called most stridently for imposing stricter corruption standards in French politics was Marine Le Pen herself. In the early 2000s, as she prepared to take over the party from her dreadful father, its founder Jean-Marie, she deployed the slogan “Hands clean, heads high” to distinguish what was then called the National Front from the mainstream parties. In a televised appearance in 2004, she exclaimed: “Everyone has stolen money except for the National Front! And they say it’s normal, not serious! They say the French are sick of hearing about it. But the French are not sick of hearing about it. They’re sick of it happening!” These attacks formed part of her successful strategy to “de-demonise” the Front and expand its appeal beyond the extreme Right. The morning after Le Pen’s sentencing, the Communist newspaper L’Humanité led with the headline, “Hands dirty, heads low.” The French idiom “l’arroseur arrosé” (“hoist by one’s own petard”) would also have worked.
But as a result of the sentencing, what is now called the National Rally may well end up “re-demonising” itself as it fights to turn French public opinion against the court and denounces “political justice”. In televised appearances after the verdict, Le Pen and her faithful railed against the “tyranny of the judges” (a line frequently heard of late from Elon Musk in the US as well) and reverted to the violent rhetoric of the party’s early days. Le Pen herself claimed that “the system has brought out a nuclear bomb… the people who are always talking about the rule of law are generally the first to violate the rule of law”. Her supporters fancifully compared her to the murdered Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, and to victims of political persecution in Iran and Venezuela. The publications and media outlets owned by conservative mogul Vincent Bolloré (especially CNews, France’s version of Fox News) have incessantly echoed the charges, trying to mobilise as much of the population as possible against “the system”.
Will the sentencing of Le Pen follow the American and Israeli patterns and end up damaging democracy and benefitting another Right-wing politician-turned-criminal-defendant? Possibly not. The fury on the Right could die down well before the 2027 election. And the National Front/National Rally has suffered from many debilitating bouts of internecine warfare in the past — including Marine Le Pen against both her father, and her niece Marion Maréchal. If the appeals court upholds Le Pen’s sentence, her 29-year-old protégé Jordan Bardella might unite an enraged party behind him. In another scenario, rivals might fall on him and cause a damaging split. At this point, anything is possible.
But French democracy is in a fragile state. President Emmanuel Macron is deeply unpopular. Budget constraints are putting pressure on the economy and raising the spectre of social unrest, even as the unravelling of the Western alliance has led Macron to request significantly increased military spending. A minority government under Prime Minister François Bayrou is stumbling forward only at the sufferance of the National Rally and Marine Le Pen. And she could withdraw her support at any moment.
France does not need more instability. Unfortunately, though, it’s not always possible to reconcile the need for political peace with the needs of justice. While prosecutors should always take the possible political consequences of their actions into account, and examine their own political motivations for filing charges, they can’t ignore glaring cases of criminality. Were American prosecutors supposed to ignore January 6? The ridiculous national security breaches that included keeping top-secret documents in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom? Yet tragically, their attempted prosecutions of Trump probably contributed to his victory, and his subsequent full-blown assault on the country’s democratic institutions. Few weapons in Trump’s ideological arsenal have proven as deeply effective — and corrosive of democracy — as the charge of “lawfare”. The French can only hope and pray that the sentencing of Marine Le Pen does not have similar consequences.
David A. Bell is a history professor at Princeton with a particular interest in the political culture of Enlightenment and revolutionary France. His latest book is Men on Horseback: The Power of Charisma in the Age of Revolution.
DavidAvromBell 
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SubscribeSending the patrol vessels in was simply the same as sending in police in riot gear to supervise a demonstration. They look dramatic but most of the time stand around making sure nothing gets out of hand. Just sitting back and picking their noses while a legion of hairy and angry French fishermen descend on Jersey’s port wasn’t an option. And isn’t fisheries supervision one of the Royal Navy’s oldest jobs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Patrol_Squadron)?
Calling the French threat to turn off the electricity “ill considered” while accusing the British government of “belligerent” behaviour: pull the other one, mate. No one’s buying that. A laughable use of the language.
Off course, when the great annual cross Channel folk migration, of Sinbad & Co, starts next week, the (Royal) Navy will, as always, be conspicuous by its absence.
That’s maybe because it’s not responsible for that. The UK Border Force is.
Well it should be,
For centuries that was its role.
Now it seems to be just swanning around the Far East, showing off the ridiculous H.M.S Gordon Brown.
Controlling migration can hardly have been the Royal Navy’s role for centuries when any generalised control on who enters the country is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Stopping invasion has always been in the navy’s remit.
Precisely, and with the notable exception of 1688 they have done rather well.
1066?
Migration is not invasion.
“Repelling boarders” then.
“An ill-considered threat by Paris to switch off the under-water cables from Normandy which supply 90% of Jersey’s electricity may have had some effect. It is doubtful, however, that France would have carried out the threat, which would also have blacked-out France-friendly Guernsey.”
That angered alot of people, but hey, who cares what the little people think, hmm?
I hope the government remembers that this was France’s response to a small economic dispute. The tabloids weren’t entirely wrong on this one.
Remainer trying to sound reasonable, but uncomfortable in defence of the UK and an apologist for an EU member state. Anything to do down the UK as a punishment for Brexit. Stuck record.
Not surprising really – he lives there
Tripe its not a punishment for Brexit. Its the fact that the UK has signed and ratified the WA and the TCA and is now reneging on them and openly admitting its doing so because it does not like what it signed and planned to renege all along.
How do you deal with lawless pariahs?
The real problem is that the Leave Campaign was based on a tissue of lies basically saying “we can have our cake and eat it because they need us more than we need them” – phrases actually uttered by Boris himself.
Take a read of the blog of pro-Brexit trade expert Dr Richard North who headed the Leave Alliance which was a co-founder of the Leave Campaign. I’m a Remainer but admire Dr North who had a plan (stay in the EEA first for a decade while making new trade deals) but very quickly he was excluded by Cummings, Farage, Banks and Johnson because Dr North is sane and would not agree to lies.
As he now writes, “Brexiters are discovering that you cannot legislate lies but like moths they will keep on smashing themselves against the onrushing windscreen of reality’.
Whist the EU ban on UK shellfish is in place it seems perfectly legitimate to maintain the most unaccommodating interpretations of any agreements just as they do.
As each day passes it seems as though Brexit was a lot better for the UK and a lot worse for the EU than was anticipated.
Tripe to put it mildly.
I was listening until the unsubstantiated slur about Brexit Jacobins.
do you actually know who the Jacobins were? Can you explain how a ‘leftist’ political faction in eighteenth century Paris relates to a elected British government in the 21st century? Seriously, it seems, well, an odd analogy.
As I understand it, the boats which were reduced to a few hours a year, could provide no records of their previous supposed fishing record.
This piece also fails to mention that many of these trawlers are scraping the bottom of the sea and destroying the entire marine ecosystem in order to catch the shellfish. This is insupportable and intolerable.
The devil is in the details, the majority of the French whelking boats are small boats and with single owner fishing families with generations of fishing.
These boats never had to have sat nav records of bigger boats and its these that are being demanded by Jersey authorities.
We should be paying those gallant French fisherman to intercept and arrest Sinbad & Co, as they commence their annual folk migration across the Channel.
I’m sure they would do a far better job than our frankly pathetic Border Force.
I was surprised that the French chose to invoke the comparison with the Battle of Trafalgar, given the outcome of that particular contest.
Perhaps they are as ignorant of their History as our leaders are of ours?
Interesting that Boris’s CCJ made the first item on all news media, but the exposure that it was confected by an activist did not.
I have not seen any apology for the overreaction from any media outlet.
If the said activist has lied in his application to the court he has committed a VERY serious offence and hopefully will be severely dealt with. It is at least on a par with the offences of people like Aitkin and that Liberal chap who went to prison along with his wife when he tried to lie to the police about who was driving. To fabricate a debt in a malicious act against a politician is in my view far more serious than swapping points with your wife. Perverting the course of Justice has long sentences attached to it.
How does this writer know that the French would not have carried out their threat to cut off the electricity. What is his source for this claim- or is it just wishful thinking?
I’m not inclined to de escalate this, but to be fair, I think the electricity threat was some hot air from a French MP rather than a stated government policy or threat.
It reminds me of the Canadian-Danish issue over ownership of a tiny island near Greenland that blew up into a minor diplomatic spat and culminated in one side (can’t remember which) sending a navy ship to plant a flag there.
It resulted in nothing by the end, other than the best editorial cartoon ever. It was just after the US had a falling out with France over the Gulf War. France had refused to participate. Patriotic Americans changed the name of french fries to “Freedom Fries”. The cartoon I mentioned had a drawing of the bins at a Canadian donut shop (Tim Horton’s) with labels: Chocolate Glazed, Boston Cream, then Danish crossed out and “Freedom Donut” written in.
These idiotic ‘testosterone surges’ can have very serious consequences. 1914-18 for example.
Its worth looking at the bigger picture.
At the start of the Brexit talks the UK, then represented by David Davis the first Brexit Sec, tried to make both the Withdrawal Agreement and any subsequent new trade deal a series of separate sectoral deals and incredibly even wanted bilateral deals between the UK and separate EU members.
The EU stood firm and said it has to be a single withdrawal deal with everything interdependent, and further that in a future new trade deal no sector would be siloed from the rest.
Johnson tried to go back to splitting into sectoral deals in the talks in the last months of 2020 and specifically wanted fishing left out of an UK-EU deal going back to the old divide and rule idea of the UK signing separate bilateral fishing deals with EU members. Again this was firmly rejected and it was at this time the French gave the example of in future linking fishing quotas to the rates charged to the UK for electricity supplied via the 2 gigawatt cross channel interconnecter which typically supplies 5% of UK power. Currently this is governed by a contract running until 2026 and the UK gets a very discounted EU members rate as do the CI and their contract also is due renegotiation in 2026.
So fishing is tied in with everything else and in the case of the Channel Islands as both UnHerd and the Observer have reported, there seems to be a very deliberate provocation by hardliners in the government of Jersey in conjunction with Brexit-Ultras in London and a brazen breach of the fishing agreement signed and ratified as part of the TCA.
So who are the hardliners in Jersey? Well a clue is the very public statement by France that its blocking the EU Commssion granting UK financial equivalence. Jersey is home for tax reasons to a number of multi-billion pound hedge funds and the assorted billionaires and multi-millionaires who own them and many of whom are big Brexit backers – people like the husband of Andrea Leadsom and her brother-in-law Peter du Putron who own Bell Rock Capital and who are domiciled in Jersey (for tax reasons) but who were big financial backers of the Leave Campaign.
Its a pattern now, Brexit-ultras are reneging on everything Johnson signed – the NIP, the March 16th tripartite fishing deal with the EU and Norway over North and Arctic Sea quota’s, and the whelking quota deal over the Channel Islands.