Translated material
The far right did not say the last word
At the end of the hearing in the case where prosecutors are demanding that Marine Le Pen be deprived of the right to be elected, she confirmed that she “may” dismiss the government
Marine Le Pen. Photo: Photo: Yuri Safronov / Novaya Gazeta
On the evening of November 27, Marine Le Pen left the far right door of the courtroom with two pieces of knowledge that could even influence the history of France in the future.
Firstly, the court announced when a verdict will be rendered in this high-profile case about the organization of a system of theft of funds from the European Parliament by its National Rally party - with an estimated amount of damage of 4.5 million euros. On the same day, it will become known whether the court will sentence Marin herself to a ban on elections for five years, and therefore to “political death” (as she herself says). Secondly, Le Pen came out of the far-right door with a hint that she was ready in the coming days to unite with the far left in order, roughly speaking, to overthrow the government. At the same time, she stated that her future decisions should in no way be associated with the court. That is, she tried to assure that in the threat to destroy the cabinet of ministers assembled with difficulty by Macron, one should not look for signs of revenge for this “political trial” of her and her party.
And she stated that the trial, which lasted almost two months, of course, “brought her suffering,” but only in this sense: Marin suffered from the fact that she was forced to “appear three times a week” ( although she could not go so often, but she showed discipline - Yu.S. ) at the hearings instead of spending this precious time on voters dear to her heart, whom she and fellow party members characterize as “good Frenchmen”, “good workers”, brought to almost handles the tax and immigration policies of previous governments. And then, it turns out, a “political trial” is being organized over the only “alternative to the system”, which the rich heiress of the party built by her dad is trying to pass herself off as, in order to prevent her from running in the next presidential elections in 2027.
Last day of the process
On the last day of the trial, one of the largest hearing rooms at the new Paris Palace of Justice was overcrowded, as many French media correctly noted. But that's because they probably only went into the roughly 100-seat auditorium and didn't go down into the much larger auditorium where the video feed was going on. And it was completely empty there - in contrast to one of the trials of ex-President Sarkozy and the trial of the ex-favorite of the presidential race - 2017 Fillon. However, let's wait for the day when all of France with bated breath (millions with anxiety, but millions with slight joyful anticipation) finds out whether the court sentenced 56-year-old Le Pen to deprivation of the right to be elected, which - at the request of the prosecutor's office - will have to take place effective immediately, regardless of whether the main defendant files an appeal.
On the final day, Marine Le Pen, flanked by Louis Alio, the National Rally number two and her former life partner, and Vallerand de Saint-Just, the party's former treasurer, sat in the front row listening intently to her lawyer. The dramaturgy of this court performance* was structured correctly: on the last day, the defender of the main character of the political-financial detective acted.
It is pleasant to listen to 60-year-old master Rodolphe Bossel, even if you know that he is defending an indisputably guilty party. However, during his three-hour speech (which flew by like some short two-hour speech), the lawyer assured the court that this was clearly not the case of Marine Le Pen and her 24 other “accomplices” (in the terms of the prosecutor’s office).
If we omit the most beautiful techniques and phrases (such as “the non-Pontius Pilatov approach of the prosecutor’s office”), the defense lawyer’s speech can be reduced to four main statements:
The process against Marine Le Pen is “political from the very beginning,” because it was arranged after a statement to the French Ministry of Justice (in 2015) by the then President of the European Parliament, German Social Democrat Martin Schulz, who thus allegedly served the then French President, socialist Francois Hollande. As another defense lawyer, Francois Wagner, argued last week, “everything is permitted between socialist comrades.”
Prosecutors “adjusted to respond” to the requirements of the French anti-corruption law Sapin II , which provides for the immediate execution of the punishment of a ban on election, although, according to the lawyer, “only nine work contracts can be imputed to Ms. Le Pen” for the hiring of assistants to members of the European Parliament** that were concluded before the entry into force of this law. And everything was “tailored” to the answer with one goal: to prevent Le Pen from running in the 2027 presidential elections.
But neither she nor the other accused can be charged with all this, because the laws “do not define a clear framework” for what the work of assistants to European deputies consists of.
Finally, even another similar trial of the centrist party MoDem, close to Macron , as a result of which its chairman Francois Bayrou was acquitted, and several of its officials received suspended sentences for the same thing (“creating fictitious seats” in the European Parliament) was arranged allegedly with the only The goal is to “create the appearance” of the legality of the trial against Le Pen’s party. Lawyer Bosselyu also called the prosecutors' references to the fact that the damage from the machinations of the Lepenites is 15 times greater than the damage from the actions of MoDem speculative. In his opinion, both parties did not violate anything, and the difference in amounts emphasizes the innocence of both parties: one simply spent significantly more money on assistants because it had more deputies in the EP.
Having argued about the “political nature” of the persecution of his client, Bosseloux was “forced” to resort to the following rhetorical device “so as to not make political statements myself as a lawyer: “I’m taking off my robe for a while ( conditionally, because I still wore it . - Yu. S. ) and I say that this is all a weapon of mass destruction of democracy. I'm putting on my robe again..."
But even “in the robe,” he continued to put forward political claims to the prosecutor’s office: “This is the deprivation of the right to vote at least 13 million French ( who voted for the party in the last elections - Yu.S. ), and possibly the entire electoral corps.”
“Immediate execution of the sentence may have disproportionate legal consequences,” the lawyer also said, assuring that “the severity (of the prosecutor’s office) is unjustified and unfounded” and represents “a demand for political liquidation.”
Marine Le Pen said the day before (quoting AFP): “They demand my political death.”
Her lawyer, by the way, emphasized her daily presence at the trial: “She came almost every day with the desire to explain, to convince you of her complete good faith.”
Given the way Ms. Le Pen responded to investigators’ subpoenas in previous years, one can assume—I would add on my own—that she now actually takes the threat of a verdict very seriously.
Moreover, after her lawyer spoke, she did not want to say the “last word,” so after the break, the meeting lasted literally another two minutes, during which the presiding judge announced that the verdicts would be announced on March 31, 2025 at 10.00.
***
After that, leaving the hall to the microphones and cameras, Marine Le Pen spoke about her “suffering” due to the fact that she did not spend these court days working in favor of her voters, and assured that this trial “will not affect political actions” of her party now, but “the draft budget is terrible” ( the budget for 2025 has not yet been adopted, the discussion continues in the National Assembly. - Y.S. ). To the question of one of the journalists: “Will you vote for no confidence in the government?” - Marine replied: “I have already answered your current question in my previous statement,” and left.
Threat of cabinet resignation
But while she is walking towards the exit from the new Parisian Palace of Justice, her faithful (?) squire Jordan Bardella at the same time approaches a restaurant on the street in Strasbourg, where an almost kilometer-long line awaits him to sign a just published book line of ultra-right fans - let’s dive briefly into the story of the “resignation of the government”, which several media sources in the party predict literally next week.
First of all, we note that rumors that Lepen’s “National Association” is “seriously considering such a scenario” began to circulate immediately after on November 13, state prosecutors demanded that Marine Le Pen be sentenced to five years in prison (of which three years are suspended), to five years of deprivation of the right to be elected and a fine of 300,000 euros.
Severe, but milder punishments were also requested for other “accomplices”: for example, for Yann Marechal-Le Pen (Marin’s sister) - 18 months probation and two years of deprivation of voting rights, and for Louis Alio (Marin’s ex-companion and mayor of Perpignan) - 18 months suspended sentence, 30,000 euro fine and three years deprivation of voting rights***.
Sebastien Chenu, vice-president of the National Rally and the porte-parole party, recently said that Prime Minister Barnier is “creating all the conditions for a vote of no confidence and multiplying them day after day.” It is enough for 126 deputies of Le Pen’s party to support the resolution on a vote of no confidence, which the left has long been planning to introduce in order to overthrow the prime minister and the cabinet.
The main initiator of the vote is the leader of the far-left "Unruly France" Jean-Luc Mélenchon - who has been known for many years to be a "fierce political opponent" of Marine Le Pen, but at the same time, like her, a long-time "fellow traveler" of the Kremlin (after 02/24/2022, like her, who understandably put this expensive public “support” on the back burner).
Until recently, such an alliance seemed “impossible” to the overwhelming majority of French political observers and, they say, even to President Macron himself. Moreover, Macron de facto enlisted Le Pen’s support in forming a new government, which included several “conservatives” (starting with Prime Minister Barnier himself) who supported Le Pen’s “fight against migration.”
But such a scenario is already being talked about from every angle.
It is clear that Mélenchon, like other members of the New Popular Front, left outside the government by Macron , is primarily driven by an understandable desire for revenge (they have been declaring their intention to resign the government from the moment it has not yet begun work).
But Le Pen and her fellow party members insist that they have “nothing personal,” the government is simply proposing to adopt a budget that does not take into account the demands of their voters.
The latest survey by the Ifop social service confirms: 73% of Le Pen voters “disapprove of the Prime Minister’s actions”, and the same proportion are “against” the draft budget. 67% of National Unity voters were in favor of the “successful procedure for a vote of no confidence”, while among supporters of the Socialist Party there were 73%, and among the ultra-left “rebellious” - 88%.
At the same time, according to AFP, despite public statements by the leaders of the far-right party (including Bardella), during internal party discussions fears are expressed that, having brought down the government on the eve of Christmas and preventing it from adopting the budget for 2025, they are in the eyes of a considerable part of voters will take responsibility for the institutional crisis. And for the subsequent deterioration of the economic and social situation in the country.
Moreover, opponents will not fail to recall that conversations about a vote began immediately after the announcement of the indictment of the prosecutor's office.
Moreover, as AFP notes, since the lower house of parliament (the National Assembly) cannot be dissolved until July anyway (a year after the last elections), the government's resignation now appears to skeptics within the party to be "potentially futile, if not counterproductive."
But Marine Le Pen, it seems, is still a little (not seriously) offended by the “political trial” carried out on her in the Paris Palace of Justice.
Demands to accept the budget version proposed by her party. She says (immediately after leaving the residence of the Prime Minister, who invited her to a conversation on November 25): “If the budget does not pass ( in the event of the fall of the government - Yu.S. ), last year’s budget will simply be applied.”
A few more words about the “far-fetched” (in the words of Marine Le Pen) scandal that arose around the statement of the chairman of her party, the 29-year-old talented political youth Jordan Bardella. On November 18, during a long interview with the BFMTV channel , he confidently said that the absence of a criminal record is “rule number one” for him and for the entire party in general, therefore those with a criminal record have no place in elected positions.
Political opponents, remembering that if Le Pen is convicted, Bardella should become her “successor”, after this they did not fail to mock the young politician.
Socialist Party first secretary Olivier Faure joked through X: “We knew Bardella was in a hurry. But here he was caught red-handed for clearly speeding..."
Paul Vannier, one of the leading cadres of Unruly France, called Bardella “the good Brutus.”
“This is the blow of a donkey ****, or Brutus killing his mother. You will have to get Freud out of the grave so that he can explain this to us,” a deputy from the government camp, quoted by AFP, added with a smile. Macronovets, however, emphasized that he sees Bardella’s statement as a manifestation of political immaturity: “When you come to BFMTV to talk about this, you should usually have some speech preparations, you should know that they will ask you about it.”
Bardella, unless he's a great actor, really seems to have been caught off guard on live television. When Jordan said that there was “no place for people on trial,” the presenter insisted: “Wait, wait, what about Marine Le Pen...” And then Jordan showed confusion for a couple of seconds... Then he finally said that “there will still be an appeal.” , and added that “Marin is absolutely innocent.” But it made an impression.
“They make a problem out of nothing!” - after all, the hostess of the party herself assured on RTL . And she stated that she was confident in Jordan’s absolute devotion.
Bardella himself, at a triumphant autograph session in Strasbourg on November 27, said: “I tell those who are trying to push a piece of cigarette paper between me and Marin that it will not work, because our relationship is very strong. First of all, extremely trusting: for 12-13 years now I have supported her every day, so I think that my devotion and loyalty no longer need proof.”
“Why didn’t you come to the trial if you’re so devoted?” - ill-wishers could ask Bardella, but I would answer them that it is almost certainly the case that Marin herself decided so. It's impossible otherwise, isn't it?