When US vice president JD Vance lambasted European leaders for abandoning democracy and free expression, the chattering elite naturally clutched their pearls in faux outrage. But where was he wrong?
Vance listed a string of what he cast as an oppressive European responses to political expression, from the United Kingdom arresting a man for praying near an abortion clinic to Sweden convicting an anti-Islam campaigner for burning Korans in public […]
“Consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that canceled elections. Were they the good guys?”
Not then, not now.
Marine Le Pen has slammed a French court for a “political decision” after she was convicted in an embezzlement trial and banned from France’s next presidential election.
The verdict means Ms Le Pen can’t take part in 2027 presidential elections in which she was the leading candidate, but the leader of the far right National Rally party told French TV she would appeal the ruling and vowed she would in “no way” retire from political life.
Leaving aside the near-automatic resort of the media to mix opinion and reporting, and dub anyone to the right of Marx ‘far right’, France is doing exactly what Vance accused them of. Exactly, too, what the US elite did to Donald Trump: use vexatious, selective lawfare to try and exclude popular candidates who threaten their cosy establishment.
Make no mistake: Le Pen is hugely popular with disenchanted French voters, according to Le Figaro, the most popular politician in all France. It took a co-ordinated ganging up of the political establishment to keep her out of the presidency at the last election.
Apparently they were terrified that even that wouldn’t work, this time. So, just jail your opponents like an old-fashioned junta.
Judges handed down the sentence overnight (AEDT), up-ending France’s political order and thrusting Ms Le Pen’s far-right party into limbo. Ms Le Pen also received a four-year prison sentence, half of which was suspended. Judges said she could serve the remaining two years by using an electronic bracelet or other alternatives to jail time.
The ruling takes Ms Le Pen out of contention for the 2027 race, when President Emmanuel Macron finishes his second and final term and Ms Le Pen was expected to be the front-runner.
What, exactly, is she supposed to have done?
The court ruled that Ms Le Pen and other members of her party illegally used millions of euros in European Union funding that was earmarked for assistants helping politicians in the European parliament with their work. Instead, judges said, Ms Le Pen and her politicians used the money to pay party staffers who weren’t involved in work for the parliament.
Which is, as it happens, exactly what ‘Dictator Dan’ Andrews did in Victoria, with the ‘Red Shirts’ scam. Not a single Labor politician ever faced court: in fact, they simply refused to be interviewed by police. And got away with thumbing their noses at the law.
In France, too, current prime minister and Macron ally, François Bayrou, was conveniently given ‘the benefit of the doubt’ over exactly the same charges. Eight of Bayrou’s party colleagues, including five MEPs and a former French finance minister, were convicted of creating fictitious party assistant jobs and using them to siphon taxpayer funds. Although the court concluded that Bayrou likely authorised the fraudulent payments, it chose to let him off.
Just like the US DOJ let Joe Biden off for improperly keeping classified records, but threw the book at Donald Trump for exactly the same thing.
Judges applied “provisional execution” to Ms Le Pen’s ban, which means that it takes effect immediately, even if Ms Le Pen appeals Monday’s ruling. Her prison sentence, meanwhile, remains suspended while any appeals are under way.
Ms Le Pen denied the charges in court, testifying that it was appropriate for the assistants to perform other party-related work because they were political aides, not direct employees of the European parliament.
At least, then, they were real, unlike Macron’s buddy’s make-believe employees.
France joins the latest in a string of European countries, from Romania to Britain, which have suspended elections.
As JD Vance said:
“If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.”
In fact, the French elite are so afraid of their own voters that they’re threatening anyone who too-loudly objects to this egregious lawfare.
France’s High Council of the Judiciary in a statement on Monday expressed its concern over what it called “virulent reactions” provoked by the ruling after Le Pen’s allies in France and far-right leaders from European countries condemned it.
Don’t you dare call us tyrants! Or we’ll have you arrested!
