The Le Pen Trial: It Is Time for France To Reflect

"In a state governed by the rule of law, everyone must have the right to appeal. If Le Pen is denied this right, then this right will be denied to everyone, and that would be a mistake."

From The European Conservative

By Pieter Cleppe

When judges unreasonably interpret laws to limit politicians' freedoms, they erode the trust essential for upholding the rule of law, a vital element of democracy. 

‘The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.’ The conviction of Marine Le Pen for the misuse of European Parliament funds is reminiscent of the statement by the Roman writer Tacitus. The more complex the rules, the easier it becomes to arbitrarily persecute people. 

Le Pen and her co-defendants of Rassemblement National are accused of ‘embezzling’ up to €6.8 million from EU funds meant to pay European Parliamentary assistants, who were found to have engaged in domestic activities as well as working in Brussels. 

Anyone familiar with the European Parliament knows how problematic the spending of this institution’s funds is. Time and again there are disputes about whether certain expenses meet the criteria, whether it concerns travel or conferences or the question of what kind of work assistants of MEPs are allowed to do.

A common practice

As is well known, Le Pen is not exactly the only politician who has been accused of this.

One example is the current French Prime Minister, François Bayrou. He was forced to resign in 2017 because an investigation was underway against his party regarding—you’ll never guess—the possible fictitious employment of assistants in the European Parliament. In February 2025, a French judge finally ruled that his party—but not Bayrou—was guilty.

In Belgium, too, it is a reality that parliamentary assistants increasingly work for the political parties, according to a university study conducted in 2022. This costs taxpayers millions of euros on top of the party funding provided by the Belgian state. That does not mean that anything goes. Joëlle Milquet, the former leader of the Belgian centre-left CDH, is accused of having hired employees in her cabinet when she was federal minister of the interior and vice premier, to have them carry out tasks linked to her election campaign.

Provisional implementation

In France, many of Le Pen’s opponents condemned her conviction. Prime Minister François Bayrou said, ‘It would be very strange if this punishment were imposed and carried out.’ The extreme left and centre right also rejected the verdict.

In addition to the conviction itself and the ongoing debate about potential double standards—where some individuals face harsh prosecution while others do not—there has been significant protest over the severity of the punishment. A particular point of contention is the French court’s decision to bar Marine Le Pen from participating in the upcoming 2027 presidential elections. This ruling has sparked widespread criticism and fueled further public outcry.

On top of the fine and a prison sentence, which Le Pen may serve with an ankle bracelet, she will be prohibited from standing in any political election for the next five years. While the fine and prison sentence are suspended pending the outcome of any appeals, the ban on her eligibility to run for office will take effect immediately. Her party, the Rassemblement National, was apparently not prepared for the latter.

“The judges applied the law, but what shocks me in this case is that we cannot oppose the provisional execution by appealing immediately,” the prominent French criminal lawyer Jean-Yves Le Borgne commented. He added: “The real question is, where is this urgency that would justify this provisional execution, which is contrary to the presumption of innocence?”

This does indeed seem to be the crux of the matter. According to the judgement, the provisional execution of this sentence is necessary because it would cause “irreparable damage to the public democratic order” if a politician convicted of misuse of public funds in the first instance were nevertheless allowed to stand.

This seems to be an extremely broad interpretation, to say the least. Christine Lagarde, the current president of the European Central Bank, was allowed to remain head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2016 despite a conviction for criminal negligence during her time as French finance minister in a corruption case that cost French taxpayers 403 million euros, a multiple of the damage in the Le Pen case.

In an analysis, Le Monde describes “the immediate application of the ban on running for office, even during the appeal” as “a more exceptional measure,” explaining: 

The law is recent, and the precedents are fragile. The matter could, once again, be brought before the Constitutional Council. However, the measure has already been applied to officials convicted of embezzling public funds, such as former senator and president of French Polynesia Gaston Flosse, or the former mayor of Toulon, Hubert Falco. 

Using a “fragile” interpretation was perhaps not the best idea to justify excluding the frontrunner for the 2027 French Presidential election.

Judicial independence

It is theoretically possible that Le Pen will still find a legal way out or that she will even be pardoned by President Emmanuel Macron. However, the damage has been done. Judicial independence is of the utmost importance, but when judges apply unreasonable interpretations of legislation to curtail the freedom of politicians who find themselves on the edge of the political spectrum—if that is even the case here—in the end, those judges undermine the trust that is needed to uphold the rule of law, which serves as the cornerstone for democracy.

As the former rector of the Catholic University of Leuven Rik Torfs put it: 

The law obviously allows the judge some leeway in the interpretation of the facts. In addition, in the sentencing, she could also have imposed a completely suspended sentence or no ineligibility at all.

At the very least, the court could have made that ineligibility non-provisional, which would deprive Le Pen of the ability to appeal against the ban on running for office.

In all of this, we must give the last word to the leader of the French extreme left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, himself involved in a scandal about the use of European Parliament staff at the national level. He made the following statement about Le Pen:

In a state governed by the rule of law, everyone must have the right to appeal. If Le Pen is denied this right, then this right will be denied to everyone, and that would be a mistake.

It is high time for France to reflect.