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MARINE LE PEN’S EMBLEZZLEMENT CONVICTION  
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Aurelien Mondon
March 31, 2025
The Conversation
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_ Marine Le Pen’s victim narrative is already being constructed –
but there are ways to stop her criminal conviction from benefitting
her. _

Marine Le Pen at the Paris courthouse, Monday March 31, 2025.,
Stephanie Lecoco/Reuters

 

Marine Le Pen, figurehead of France’s Rassemblement National (RN),
one of the most established far-right parties in Europe, has been
found guilty of embezzling funds from the European parliament.

During her time as an MEP between 2004 and 2017, Le Pen and her team
paid party staff with funds that should have gone to European
parliamentary aides. The ruling estimates that a total of €2.9
million (£2.4 million) in European parliament funds
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were involved in the crimes and that Le Pen personally embezzled
€474,000 of that total.

She has been sentenced to four years in prison, two of which would be
electronic monitoring. She is also unlikely to see the inside of a
cell for the other two years as she is appealing her conviction.

More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that she has been banned from
holding public office for five years. Crucially, the ban is to start
immediately, meaning that even with an appeal, Le Pen is highly
unlikely to be able to stand as a candidate in the next presidential
election in 2027.

For many in the RN, the court’s decision will be a major blow. The
party appears to have lost the candidate they believed was on course
for victory in 2027. However, others will no doubt see this as a
chance to distance the party further from the Le Pen name, following
the death of Marine Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie Le Pen
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earlier this year.

This process has been in motion for some time. Jordan Bardella took
over from Le Pen as president of the party in 2022 and has clearly
been waiting and preparing for this eventuality. Allegations were
first levelled at Le Pen many years ago and her crimes relate to her
time as an MEP between 2004 and 2017. He has been the plan B option
throughout her trial.

Bardella led the RN to victory in the 2024 European election in
France. He also managed to send a record number of parliamentarians to
the National Assembly after French president Emmanuel Macron called a
snap election
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just weeks later.

This was, nevertheless, a somewhat disappointing outcome as many on
the far right had started to imagine Bardella as prime minister. Since
failing to meet this expectation, his leadership has come under more
scrutiny. His reaction to Le Pen’s sidelining will be watched
carefully.

Playing the victim

Overall, it is good news to see corruption being taken seriously and
justice being served. However, Le Pen’s conviction comes after years
of embezzlement which has allowed the far right to build its strength.
All this has come on the back of a system it has vowed to destroy. As
such, it feels like too little too late.

Furthermore, this decision, and the fact that it is tied to the
European Union, is likely to feed into typical far-right propaganda on
the domestic stage. Le Pen and the party will play the victim, blaming
Le Pen’s fate on a wide conspiracy organised by something akin to
the deep state
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operating via Brussels.

The deep levels of distrust in public institutions and mainstream
politics are likely to play a role here. Le Pen will aim to paint the
decision of an independent court as the political assassination of the
“champion of the people”.

She could become a martyr, turning her cause into a revolt against
“the system”. Bardella has already said that Le Pen’s conviction
amounted to the “execution” of democracy.

Crucially, though, this outcome isn’t inevitable. Whether such a
narrative takes hold is a choice that is very much in the hands of
mainstream elite actors. Those who have a privileged access to shaping
public discourse, such as journalists, politicians and experts will
therefore play a key role.

Instead of giving pride of place to Le Pen and the far right in a
tempting sensationalising coverage, the mainstream media must turn to
serious analysis. This would involve removing the focus from
individuals and putting it on the wider issues at hand. That would
lessen the potential for a narrative of victimisation to take hold.

Beyond providing an accurate picture of the case itself, good coverage
should predominantly focus on politics rather than on the spectacle
the RN will inevitably try to construct as a diversion tactic. This
would mean engaging seriously with what the RN actually proposes as a
model of society: one that is not against the “elite” and for the
people, but merely in favour of a different elite taking control at
the head of a top-down authoritarian state.

[Marine le Pen and Jordan Bardella]
Le Pen with party president Jordan Bardella. EPA/Teresa Suarez

This would then allow voters to understand that the far right is not
on their side, but on the side of power, wealth and hierarchies. Those
who oppose such a takeover could go some way to fix the damage that
has been done with carelessly associating these parties with
“populism”
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Finally, good coverage would also mean shifting the agenda away from
the far right and its pet issues. Had politicians – left, right and
centre – not continuously used the far right as a diversion from
their own failures to tackle the many crises their countries face, the
far right would not be as powerful as it seems.

As opinion polls show, when people are asked what are their biggest
concerns personally, issues core to the far right such as immigration
are low
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Instead, it is issues that would require radical measures to tackle
economic and social insecurity which are prioritised.

The far right offers nothing to address these – only division to
make citizens powerless to fight back. Now that Le Pen is out of the
picture, it is a good time to shift the agenda back to democracy and
hope.

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* France; Marine Le Pen; National Rally;
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