Judgement with consequences
Pan-European think-tank warns of serious ‘consequences’ flowing from Marine Le Pen’s conviction: upsurge of far-right ‘anti-establishment movements’. Support for Le Pen from Europe, Israel and America.
PARIS/BERLIN/WASHINGTON (own report) - A Europe-wide think-tank warns of “far-reaching European consequences” of Marine Le Pen’s de facto exclusion from the next presidential election in France. The court ruling has deprived Le Pen of the right to stand for election with immediate effect. This development is, as a recent article from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) put it, likely to lead to an immediate upswing of support “for anti-establishment movements throughout Europe”. Opinion surveys indicate that almost half of the population in France believes that the judgement was politically motivated. Leading politicians of the extreme right from all across the European Union, including a prime minister and a deputy prime minister, have voiced their support for Le Pen. The Rassemblement National (National Rally) leader has also received wider widespread international backing beyond the EU. Condemnation of the sentence has also come from the right in North America, Latin America and Israel – in the case of Israel, from a government minister who recently hosted representatives from far-right parties around Europe at a conference in Jerusalem. In the United States, the highly influential Trump-advising Heritage Foundation has also weighed in. Le Pen’s conviction has consolidated core elements of a new network of the transatlantic far right as it closes ranks.
Excluded from standing with immediate effect
The anger against the Marine Le Pen judgement is focused above all on the fact that she has been deprived of the right to stand for election for five years. Indeed, this penalty is not suspended pending a hearing in the court of appeal, as is generally the case, but comes into force immediately. Le Pen is not the first person to be hit by such a sentence. However, previous cases in which prominent politicians were deprived of the right to stand for election only concerned figures who were nearing the end of their careers. The sentences passed on former President Nicolas Sarkozy and former Prime Minister François Fillon did not mean they were denied a promising candidacy for a top political post. But this is very much the case with Le Pen. The Rassemblement National (RN) politician has recently even been leading in opinion polls on the question of voters’ preferences for the next presidential election. A survey by the Odoxa polling institute, published on Monday, puts Le Pen as currently the most popular politician in France. Her approval rating of 37 per cent is just ahead of former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe (36 per cent) and the president of her own RN party, Jordan Bardella (35 per cent).[1]
Divided society
Le Pen’s political significance should not have any influence on the legal process in this case against her. Yet the fact that she is the only politician to have been denied a chance of becoming president by immediately removing her right to stand has left her sympathisers with a bad taste in their mouths and outraged her supporters. These people form a significant proportion of the French population. An initial survey on Monday showed that 46 per cent of the population believe that politics is behind the particularly harsh action taken against Le Pen. Only a slim majority of 54 per cent thought that the RN leader was being treated impartially, just like any other citizen.[2] Again, only 54 per cent took the view that the legal judgement showed French democracy was working well; 43 per cent were convinced of the opposite. Regardless of how the verdict is to be assessed in legal terms, it has deepened the division in French society and threatens to attract new sympathisers to the extreme right. The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) think-tank believes it could boost the mobilisation of the RN base ahead of the next election.[3]
The ‘patriots’ close ranks
Internationally, Le Pen’s exclusion from the next presidential election has led to a demonstrative closing of ranks by the extreme right. These forces are angry at what they see as liberal European elite using the judiciary to prevent the right from gaining access to power. Statements of support for Le Pen soon came on Monday from Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, and Dutch politician Geert Wilders, whose Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) is part of the governing coalition in the Netherlands. Orbán’s Fidesz party, Salvini’s Lega and Wilders’ PVV are key members of Patriots for Europe (PfE), the European Parliament bloc in which Le Pen’s RN is prominent.[4] Other PfE parties have also condemned the Le Pen ruling. Harald Vilimsky, an MEP from the Austrian FPÖ, for example, railed against a “scandalous judgement”.[5] The leader of Belgium’s Vlaams Belang, Tom Van Grieken, has called the court ruling an “attack on democracy”, while the leader of the Spanish party Vox declared the French people “will not be silenced”.[6] Responses with a similar message can be heard everywhere.
Transatlantic networks
In a recent analysis, the ECFR warns that “the broader European consequences of this decision will be significant.”[7] For example, “the immediate impact may be a surge in support for anti-establishment movements across Europe.” The view propagated by the Trump administration that the liberal elites have “taken over Western political systems” will be given further credence. We are likely to see the far-right claim that “the system” is working to silence them being voiced even more vigorously in future. This can already be seen beyond Europe. Brazil’s ultra-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, for example, is quoted as saying, “the left and the system are working to get their opponents out of the game.”[8] Trump aide Elon Musk has claimed, “When the radical left can’t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents.”[9] Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference is widely celebrated in the circles of the US right. Vance had told European leaders that they were silencing right-wing views by foul means.[10]
Support from Israel
Vance’s assertion has encouraged individuals and organisations beyond Europe to establish closer relations with the PfE. Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli, declared on X that “the pathetic and transparent attempt by the declining elites to suppress the will of the people by weaponizing the judicial system will fail.”[11] Chikli organised a conference in Jerusalem last week to which representatives of various PfE parties were invited, including the RN (german-foreign-policy.com reported [12]). He was elected to the Knesset in 2022 for Likud, the party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And Likud was accorded official observer status at the PfE in February. In the US, the Heritage Foundation, which has referred positively to Vance’s comments on X in response to the Le Pen ruling, is also strengthening its own links with the PfE.[13] It runs a ‘Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom’, whose legal expert Eugene Kontorovich is now claiming that France is following a “pattern of political prosecutions in the US and Israel where criminal prosecutions for obscure victimless offenses are used to knock out popular leaders of right wing parties.”[14] This portal (german-foreign-policy.com) will be reporting shortly on the Heritage Foundation’s pursuit of political goals through by supporting the right-wing extremists in the EU.
[1] Sondage : 60% des adhérents RN déclarent préférer Jordan Bardella à Marine Le Pen. publicsenat.fr 31.03.2025.
[2], [3] Célia Belin, Camille Lons, Pawel Zerka: Slip of Le Pen: How the conviction of the French politician will fuel Europe’s far right. ecfr.com 01.04.2025.
[4] Katya Adler: Le Pen’s right wing European allies condemn court verdict as threat to democracy. bbc.co.uk 01.04.2025.
[5] Europas Rechte empört über Urteil. orf.at 31.03.2025.
[6] Thomas Adamson: Le Pen verdict triggers uproar from far right in France and beyond. apnews.com 31.03.2025.
[7] Célia Belin, Camille Lons, Pawel Zerka: Slip of Le Pen: How the conviction of the French politician will fuel Europe’s far right. ecfr.com 01.04.2025.
[8], [9] Jon Henley: ‘This will backfire’: Le Pen allies hit out at Paris court’s 2027 election ban verdict. theguardian.com 01.04.2025.
[10] See: Die transatlantische extreme Rechte (III).
[11] Condamnation de Marine Le Pen à une peine d’inéligibilité : une cartographie des reactions de l’extrême-droite européenne. legrandcontinent.eu 01.04.2025.
[12] See: Guests in Israel.
[13] See: Die transatlantische extreme Rechte (II).
[14] Benjamin Weinthal: Musk slams Le Pen ruling, says it will ‘backfire’ like Trump’s as some on global right face legal troubles. aol.com 01.04.2025.
