Marine Le Pen may be politically finished after today’s verdict.
The far-right leader has been sentenced to four years in prison, two of which are suspended and two to be served under electronic surveillance, and has been immediately disqualified from holding public office for five years.
She has decided to appeal, but even if the ruling is overturned, it is likely too late for her to enter the race for the 2027 presidential election.
But the fallout extends far beyond her career: attacks on France's judicial independence have already begun – and they started long before the ruling.
National Rally President Jordan Bardella declared that with this conviction, it was “French democracy” that had been “executed.” He even called for a "popular and peaceful mobilisation."
Similarly, the party's leaders have quickly denounced the “politicisation” of justice, accusing it of serving the powerful with the sole aim of halting the party’s march to power.
“The judiciary and politics are connected, and sometimes justice has been used to break political careers,” stated RN lawmaker Laurent Jacobelli two days ago.
This is the classic playbook of populists and autocrats.
Le Pen swiftly received support from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who tweeted a simple Je suis Marine, and – even more controversially – from the Kremlin. Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov condemned the ruling as “a violation of democratic norms.”
A reaction from Elon Musk was inevitable – and of course, it came just as this article was being edited. "When the radical left can't win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents," he wrote on X.
The most striking outrage, however, came from inside France’s liberal right. François-Xavier Bellamy, leader of the Republicans (LR) in the European Parliament, declared that 31 March 2025 would remain “a very dark day for French democracy.”
Bellamy has never hidden his ideological proximity to the far right, even stating before the last presidential election that he would have voted for controversial figure Éric Zemmour –once more recently convicted for racial slander – if he had faced Emmanuel Macron in the second round in 2022.
Criticism has also come from unexpected quarters.
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