Marine Le Pen barred from running in 2027 election in shock conviction.

 

Marine Le Pen, leader of National Rally. BBC/Getty.

Leader of the National Rally and the frontrunner for the 2027 election in France, Marine Le Pen was convicted of an embezzlement charge and will be barred from running. BBC. Le Pen appealed the decision but there would be no hold on the election ban, which will last five years. She was sentenced to 4 years in prison for misuse of EU funds, a crime virtually all political parties in France are guilty of. Due to that and the fact that the ruling would have massive political consequences, nobody really thought Le Pen would be convicted or punished. The conviction has come as a shock to the National Rally Party which now has a very uncertain future. Le Pen was the main draw for the party and it's unclear if she will somehow win her appeal or if she will be replaced, perhaps by Jordan Bardella, the president of the party? Le Pen was projected to get 42% of the vote, more than enough to win the first round of voting in the 2027 election, assuming nothing changes. 

My Comment:

The state of Democracy in the west is pretty deplorable. First there was Trump who was impeached, had an election stolen, he was almost assassinated twice and was convicted of a nonsense crime. He won anyways, but then there was the AFD being shut out in Germany despite being the 2nd most popular party, Romania and Ukraine having their elections canceled, Turkey jailing Erdogan's political opponent and now? Now the leading candidate in France's election, Marine Le Pen has been barred from running in a race she would have almost certainly would have won. 

Is she guilty of what she was convicted of? Probably. From what I understand the misuse of EU funds is pretty much universal among all French political parties, but only Marine Le Pen is getting convicted for it. It's a very obvious example of a two-tiered system. Something tells me if Emmanuel Macron's center left party won't be charged under the same laws. 

La Pen was likely to win in 2027. Macron has made a mess of things and Le Pen is fairly popular. But she's been labeled far-right, and for once the slur might have at least a little proof to it. Her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was canceled for not denouncing Nazis enough, though his daughter had little to do with that. There are folks that say that Le Pen was a liability for National Rally for this reason.

Though I am guessing it both her semi-skeptical views on Ukraine and immigration that are the real reason this case was brought. Both things are very unpopular among the normal folks but Europe has been pulling out all the stops to prevent anyone from seriously challenging it. 

If there is any good news for National Front, it's the fact that they have a lot of time to figure it out. The next election isn't until 2027, so that should be enough time to either double down on Le Pen or replace her with someone else. I am guessing they will keep their options open though right now it is far too early to figure out what they will actually be doing. 

The main problem I see for the powers that be is that this will almost certainly make Le Pen into a martyr. That is exactly how it happened with Donald Trump and though Le Pen might not be able to run in 2027, folks will vote for National March just because they are upset about what happened to her. Would Trump have won in 2024 if it wasn't for the shame prosecution? Maybe but it certainly helped him out. I think the same thing could very well happen in France in 2027...