Getty Images / BBCMarine Le Pen is an icon of the nationalist right of France: one of the most famous and popular political figures in the country-with its anti-alarm plan, with its anti-migration program.
Right’s leaders, who are currently developing in a large part of Europe, consider it “one of the gangs” – even if they do not see each problem.
Many of these leaders went to social networks on Monday, after the PEN was forbidden to present itself to a political position for five years after being accused, alongside others, of diverting more than $ 4 million (3.1 million pounds sterling) from the EU for use in France by its national Rally.
For them, it was an opportunity, not only to show his support for Le Pen, but to use his case to underline what they consider their common cause – a fight against a politically traditional dominant current, which seeks to muzzle or undermine their nationalist program.
But for Le Pen, it could be the death knell for his long darling ambition to become French president. She went up in the polls before the next elections, scheduled in two years.
She and her political partners insist that they are innocent. They appeal against the verdict.
In a flamboyant demonstration of solidarity on Monday, the controversial Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, declared in a post on x In French “I am Marine” (“I am a sailor”).
Populist Geert Wilders, the leader of the biggest political party in the Netherlands, posted on X he was sure that Le Pen would win his call and that she would be the next president of France.
The Italian Deputy Prime Minister online, Matteo Salvini, also visited social networks: “We are not intimidated … At full speed, my friend!”.
“Those who fear the judgment of voters often seek to reassure the courts. In Paris, they condemned Marine Le Pen and wish to withdraw her from political life,” he wrote.
French courts deny that they are politicized. They say their work is to administer justice. Much in France, 57% according to a BFMTV survey, think that justice has been done in the Le Pen case without bias.
But a suspicion that the court was biased – determined to block the political success of the self -proclaimed voice Le Pen – was taken over by supporters in France and outside France on Monday.
ReutersFrom Russia, even the Kremlin has come. Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for President Vladimir Putin, has been a sudden interest in democracy, declaring that “the situation of Marine Le Pen is a violation of democratic standards”.
In a certain number of European countries, national legal systems seem to be taken in the middle in a new era of divisions and deep suspicions in society – leading to a tug between populist politicians and their detractors – each accusing the other of using the judiciary to protect their own political interests. France, Romania and Hungary are recent examples.
Just like the United States.
Donald Trump declared the conviction Le Pen a “very important affair”.
Speaking on Monday during a white house signature ceremony, Trump added: “[Le Pen] was banned for five years and was the main candidate. “”
“It looks like this country, it looks a lot like this country.”
When he faced a number of legal challenges before the American presidential election in November, Trump attacked all the people involved in the proceedings against him, as well as the media whose investigation work on him again called “illegal” last month.
But now he is back in the White House, he was accused by criticism of trying to use the courts to take revenge on political opponents.
His legal problems clearly did not harm his political fortune.
Back in France, it is possible that – whatever happens politically at PEN – his party will benefit and gain popularity of all the attention of the media surrounding Monday’s conviction, the case of appeal that will follow and a feeling of challenge among a large part of the voters in a French establishment they believe will try to stifle the will of the people – deprive them of their popular choice for the president.
