A fiction that broke: how the verdict against far-right leader Marine Le Pen is changing French politics (continued)

IA “FACT” already wrote that the French court found Marine Le Pen guilty of embezzling funds from the European Parliament. She received 4 years of imprisonment (2 of them suspended), a fine of 100,000 euros and a 5-year ban on running for office, which makes it impossible for her to participate in the 2027 presidential elections.

Court admitted, that the leader of the French far-right used EU funds for fictitious assistants who actually worked for the far-right party in France. The verdict was a blow to her reputation as an “anti-system” politician and symbolizes the collapse of the fiction she used to cover up real abuses.

However, this paves the way for her successor – Jordan Bardella, the 29-year-old charismatic leader of the Rassemblement National. He modernizes far-right rhetoric for the TikTok generation without changing the essence: the same anti-European and anti-immigration messages, but in a more subtle form. Bardella positions itself as a “hate manager” without scandals and open radicalism – and that is why it is potentially even more dangerous.

Le Pen’s sentence is already being called a sentence for the entire populist project, because it showed that even the far-right are not above the law. But, despite the appeal, Le Pen’s political image has already been destroyed. Judicial precedent pond a signal for all of Europe: populists can lose power not because of elections, but because of banal corruption cases. And although the Kremlin called it political persecution, the loss of Le Pen is the loss of a key ally of Russia in the EU.

Le Pen trapped in the system she wanted to destroy: will Paris become a point of bifurcation for the European Parliament

When Marine Le Pen sat down in the chair of the European deputy, she probably did not think that the most dangerous challenge for her would not be the Brussels bureaucracy or migrants from the countries of North Africa, but an ordinary investigative judge from Paris. But this often happens with revolutionaries: they stumble not over ideas, but over wage reports.

That Le Pen hired their party activists as assistants of the European Parliament is an already established fact. But is she an exception? No, it is only part of a wider system where fictitious employment was so common that it turned into a routine of the European budget.

It is worth mentioning the case of Stefania Zambelli, an Italian far-right deputy, in which in 2023 removed over 170,000 euros as part of the investigation into fictitious assistants.

And this is just a drop in the ocean. The “Catargate” scandal in 2022 showed, how the system of assistants can become a channel of influence of foreign states that seek not just to influence, but to buy up entire factions.

European Parliament has internal ethics committee. But this body is more of a decoration than a court. As long as journalists or prosecutors do not raise the alarm, the audits remain formal, and the deputies continue to register their godfathers, daughters, and party activists as “strategic advisors.”

The fact that Le Pen was able to bring the case to a verdict is rather an exception rather than a rule. In most cases, when it comes to “abuse of salaries”, the investigation does not even reach an official request.

The European Parliament today has two paths. The first is to review the rules of the game: introduce an independent audit, require deputies to publish reports on the work of assistants, create a public control mechanism. The second is to pretend that nothing happened. The second way is probably more likely. Because revealing the true scale of the problem means questioning the legitimacy of the entire institution.

#JeSuisMarine: France between the cult of the leader and a fragile faith in justice

Real upheavals rarely split a country on doomsday. They are like a crack in a stained glass window: imperceptible at first glance, but the longer you look, the more clearly you see how the light will never be the same. Similarly, France reacts on the sentence of Marine Le Pen: not with a shout, but with a mouthful of bitter truth, which everyone interprets in their own way.

Supporters of Marine Le Pen – which are millions of French people, in particular in depressed suburbs and agrarian regions – did not see justice in the sentence. They saw an attack on themselves. And that is why in the X social network started #JeSuisMarine campaign – a direct allusion to “I am Charlie“, with the difference that instead of freedom of speech, the right to populism without punishment is argued here.

Bardella’s TikTok has shared videos of him calling the verdict “fundamentally unjust,” while the Rassemblement national party page broadcasts: “We are being denied a choice.” This is not just an emotion, but an attempt to make Le Pen a martyr, a woman who was stopped because they were afraid. A political messiah who, unlike the pro-Kremlin one Melanchona, came from the people, and, according to her electorate, remains with the people even in prison chains.

After the verdict, support for the Rassemblement National did not collapse, but it did not increase either. Surveys show that the ratings remain at a stable level of 27-29%, as before the trial. This testifies not to indifference, but to the stabilization of two Frances: the one that believes in the system, and the one that wants to destroy it. An interesting paradox is observed: Le Pen won the verdict within her sect, but lost in the struggle for the center.

Videos with theses about “deep state”, “political persecution”, “dictatorship of judges”. Some users openly compare Le Pen with Joan of Arc or with Marina Salvini (this is a fictional but archetypal figure).

Left commentators write about the “triumph of justice”, but there is skepticism in their rhetoric. Because they were not judging the system, but the exception. And there are dozens of fictitious assistants.

There is another, the most numerous part of the country: those who do not tweet, do not participate in rallies and do not go to the polls. They are the mirror of the sentence. Because their indifference is a symptom of disappointment. They saw Sarkozy with a bracelet. They saw “Catargate”. Now they saw Le Pen. And what next?

Le Pen, Trump, Salvini, Orbán: why justice is not always on the side of truth

The world is entering a phase where populists are no longer just candidates, but entire institutions. And therefore every trial against them is not only about the law. It is about the hope that democracy is still able to protect itself. That is why Le Pen’s sentence is so painfully perceived not only in France – it becomes a reference test for all democracies of Europe and the world.

For the first time in many years, a high-ranking European far-right politician was not just under investigation: her condemned a real sentence, including an electronic bracelet and a ban on participating in elections. This is not a political defeat, but the defeat of the shadow mechanism of the legalization of corruption through populism.

But against the background of this sentence, the main question arises: why is Le Pen an exception? And why did her colleagues from the right spectrum – Matteo Salvini, Viktor Orbán, Donald Trump, Nigel Farage – avoid a similar fate?

The Italian Matteo Salvini is the mirror image of the Frenchwoman Le Pen. He is also against migration, wears a cross on his chest and pizza on posters. Its tried for refusing to disembark migrants from the Open Arms ship in 2019. He faced up to 15 years in prison, but in December 2024, the court found that there was no crime. This is not just an excuse. This is a signal: the court does not want to get involved in politics. And if Salvini wins the election, no one will stop him. Not because he is right, but because justice is afraid of being politicized.

You should not talk about Viktor Orban in the categories of “defendant”. He is a unique case: a prime minister who created for himself a system where courts no longer have independence, and prosecutors report to friends. The European Commission initiated rule of law proceedings against Hungary, but no one tried Orbán personally. His protection is not the law, but the state. And it is much more effective than any lawyer.

Donald Trump is another story. Its chased in civil and criminal cases, from concealment of documents to participation in the coup d’état attempt on January 6, 2021. But none of these proceedings became a brake for him during the 2024 presidential race. And here the same paradox arises as with Le Pen: justice tries to act, but society sometimes interprets it not as a guarantor of justice, but as a tool of elites.

An example of another type of inviolability there are Nigel Farage, architect of Brexit. He was not tried not because there was nothing to do, but because he never had real executive power, did not manage the budget, and did not sign decrees. He is a puppeteer, not a helmsman, and therefore beyond responsibility.

Is Le Pen’s sentence the beginning of a new trend – bringing populists to justice? Not yet. Because this requires two things: independent courts and the political will not to fear their citizens. France did it. The US is trying. Italy dodges. Hungary capitulated a long time ago.

If not Le Pen – who is the main rival of Macron or his successor?

When Marine Le Pen received the sentence, her voters began to look for a conspiracy. But in reality, everything is much simpler and scarier. Europe is starting to say goodbye not to a politician, but to an era. Le Pen is not just a surname. This is the architecture of resistance to globalism, the political language of aggression disguised as “concern for the French.” And now, when it was forced to be removed from the chessboard, another question arises: who will be white now?

Anyone who thinks that Jordan Bardella is just a younger copy of Le Pen does not understand the changes in the right field of France. Le Pen was her father’s successor. Bardella is a child of TikTok.

He is not just a politician. It is a new interface for an old hate. If Le Pen had the charisma of anger, Bardella – charisma comfort He speaks of deportation without fury. He smiles when he promises “order”. His message is not “kick everyone out”, but “let’s take back France”. And it is much more effective. That is why he is the main one today challenger for the role of the opponent of the candidate from the Macron camp in 2027.

Emmanuel Macron will not take part in the 2027 elections – the Constitution does not allow it. But his party “Renaissance” already prepares successor The bet is made on Gabriel Attal, a young, ambitious, openly gay man who is not afraid to talk about identity, but is also a brilliant technocrat and reformer. It will not be a battle between the right and the left, but a clash between two Frances: postmodern and conservative.

Attal is the embodiment of macronism of the future: less globalism, more control, but without xenophobia. And that is why the right is afraid of him. Because he is takes away they have the right to be the only ones who “hear the people”. Attal is already consolidating party structures, preparing himself for the big game.

The ultra-right after Le Pen is like the old court after the death of the queen. Everyone wants a crown, but no one knows how to wear it. The RN party has Bardella, but next to him is Marion Marechal, Le Pen’s niece, who managed join to even more radical ones – “Restoration” by Eric Zemmour. And there are moderate right-wingers from the former “Republicans” party who do not want either Zemmour, Macron, or Mélenchon.

The French right knows how to fight each other. And this is the best news for democracy. The split of the right is the only obstacle that allowed Macron to win a second time in 2022.

Jordan Bardella does not just lead the party today. He tests the ideology of the “new frontism” – without racial slogans, anti-Semitism and rhetoric about war. He wants to make radicalism legitimate, “decent”. And this is the biggest danger. Because the extreme right, which does not scare, is the most effective form of fascism of the 21st century.

Tetyana Viktorova