Paris prosecutors last week recommended that Marine Le Pen be jailed and banned from public office for five years. The court also wants similar sentences for 24 members of the party who, along with Le Pen, are accused of misusing public funds.
The prosecutor accuses Le Pen of using money intended for EU parliamentary aides to instead pay staff who worked for the party between 2009 and 2016. The defence’s argument is that it’s hard to differentiate between what constitutes EU work and party work as the two often overlap. The judges will study the evidence and a verdict is expected in early 2025.
Le Pen was probably not surprised by the prosecutors’ demand
Le Pen described the prosecutions’ recommendation as ‘excessive’ and some of her political opponents agreed; Gerald Darmanin, the former Minister of the Interior, said that ‘It would be deeply shocking if Marine Le Pen were deemed ineligible… Let us not be afraid of democracy and avoid widening, even further, the gap between the “elites” and the vast majority of our fellow citizens.’
Le Pen was probably not surprised by the prosecutors’ demand that she be sent to prison and banned from standing in the 2027 presidential election. Early on in the trial she lashed out at the Brussels ‘blob’, which she says has been after her party for years.
So, of course, has the Paris elite, but would they dare bar her from contesting the presidential election? The centre-right Le Figaro, no friend to the Le Pen family over the years, expressed its unease at the prospect of such a sanction. ‘The fact that a presidential election is taking place with a large section of the electorate feeling that the choice is being imposed on them by the judiciary is not ideal,’ remarked the newspaper, ‘either for guaranteeing the proper functioning of democracy or for responding to the accusation that the judiciary has been politicised.’
That some of the judiciary in France is politicised is incontrovertible. Last year I wrote about the open hostility of some of the profession towards the police, a contempt that is reciprocated. I referenced the second-largest magistrates’ union, unashamedly far-left, which represents about a third of the judiciary.
In June this year this same union released a statement shortly before the legislative elections calling for a ‘collective movement of unity and resistance’ against Le Pen’s party. How might the 11 million who voted for Le Pen’s National Rally in those elections respond to her exclusion from the 2027 presidential election? With fury, one suspects. The question is how that fury might manifest itself.
There are few things on which the French agree these days but one is that 2025 is going to be a year of great economic hardship.
In the third quarter of this year, the French economy shed 25,000 jobs, a figure not seen since the pandemic. Unemployment is predicted to rise from 7.1 per cent to 8 per cent by the end of next year, and among the industries in the greatest difficulty are retail, construction, automobile and aviation. Companies laying off workers include Michelin, Airbus and Auchan, flagship names that were once the pride of French industry.
The government had hoped that the Paris Olympics would revive consumer spending but their optimism was misplaced.
According to one of France’s leading economists, Mathieu Plane, ‘2025 will be a difficult year on the employment front, with a resurgence in bankruptcies.’ He predicts that 140,000 people will lose their jobs, and says that the downturn is likely to continue into 2026 and 2027.
Much of the crisis stems from Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call a snap election in June, and the chaos that ensued. Businesses are wary of investing because of the political uncertainty. The government’s struggle to formulate a budget for 2025 has also dented confidence, as has the revelation of just how badly Macron’s administration have managed the country’s finances.
Those most critical of the Macron’s handling of the economy are voters of Marine Le Pen (75 per cent compared to 19 per cent for Macron voters); those most likely to suffer from the economic downturn are people aged 50 to 64 and people living in small towns, two demographics that are staunch National Rally voters.
It was the provincial middle-aged who were also in the vanguard of the Yellow Vest movement, which began in November 2018, and which is showing signs of revival. Yellow Vest demonstrators occupied roundabouts across France at the weekend, not only to mark the sixth anniversary of the movement but also as a reminder to Macron that their anger hasn’t gone away.
Farmers are also mobilising to protest against the EU’s impending trade deal with South America that they say will kill off their industry. On Sunday evening tractors began to block roads across France, a challenge to the authority of the interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, who has said there will be ‘zero tolerance’ towards farmers who break the law.
It’s not just the ailing economy that has driven millions of French to the brink of despair; it is also mass immigration and the insecurity that comes with it, and the indifference of the Paris establishment to these two running sores of the silent majority. Should this same establishment bar Marine Le Pen from running for office it could be the spark that sets France on fire.
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