Marine Le Pen made one thing abundantly clear. She is not going quietly.
She may have been disgraced in a Paris courtroom, convicted of embezzlement, sentenced and barred from office for five years.
But there was no sense of shame or regret in her speech to the party faithful. Nor would you expect there to be. She is the victim of an establishment stitch-up, she believes, or claims to, and the crowds watching her speak in the French capital heartily agreed.
The hard-right National Rally party’s leader was found guilty of being part of a huge and orchestrated campaign to swindle the European parliament and its taxpayers, using phony accounts to raise millions.
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The judge in the case saw a politician who had long campaigned for tougher penalties for corrupt politicians and decided it only fitting to throw the book at her.
For political foes, watching their most feared enemy sent off the pitch, is all very welcome. Former prime minister Gabriel Attal told supporters at another rally she stole money and should do the punishment.
But even Le Pen’s rivals are queasy about the five-year ban from office. Some legal observers believe the judge went too far.
Whatever the rights or wrongs of the case, it does nothing to ease the country’s political crisis.
Nothing to address the festering sense of un-enfranchised grievance on the fringes of society that helped propel Le Pen to such popularity in the first place.
Jordan Bardella, National Rally’s president, spoke at the same event. Pic: Reuters
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And other populists in France and abroad are exploiting this as a cause celebre for all it’s worth.
Populists see society divided between “the people” and corrupt elites governing them.
Le Pen’s plight fits their narrative perfectly. Not surprisingly, her speech was preceded by a series of short videos from other rightist populists, from Mateo Salvini in Italy to Geert Wilders in the Netherlands.
In America, Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk have also pitched in.
Le Pen may have been banished into the political wilderness but can still cause enormous trouble from there.
