Farewell to Matera. That the verdict Marin Le Pen means for nationalists, France and the Kremlin

Meeting Vladimir Putin and Marin Le Pen in the Kremlin in 2017

The Parisian court was recognized by Marin Le Pen, the head of the faction of the extreme right -wing party “National Association”, guilty of embezzlement of 4 million euros from the European Parliament funds, determined it under arrest and forbade the state debt. This can put a cross on presidential ambitions of a politician, but for nationalists this will change little - Le Pen's departure will open the way to the young leader of the National Front Jordan Bardell, whose rating is already comparable to Le Pen. But for the Kremlin, the departure of a long -term partner can be a big loss.

Content

• Sentence and reactions to him

• The daughter of her father

• From anti -Semitian slogans to anti -migrant

• French friend Putin

Sentence and reactions to him

The Parisian court recognized the leader of the extreme right -wing party “National Association” Marin Le Pen, the leader in the embezzlement of state funds. The court sentenced her to four years in prison (two years - conditionally, two - under house arrest with an electronic bracelet), a fine of 100,000 euros, and most importantly - five years of the ban on the right to be elected. Unlike the first two parts of the punishment (imprisonment and fine), by which the sentence will enter into force after consideration of the appeal, the ban on the court’s decision will come immediately. Marin Le Pen remains a deputy of the National Assembly until the end of the mandate, but if the sentence is not revised by the appeal court, she loses the right to participate in the 2027 presidential election.

Reference: in which the court found guilty Marine Le Pen

The court decision states that Marin Le Pen and her party colleagues created a system that allowed them to spend “the budget allocated to each deputy for the expenses for the provision of parliamentary assistance” and save party money. “Since 2009, Marin Le Pen, who has decisively and authoritatively, has been in the center of this system, created by her father, in which she participated since 2004,” the chairman of the court said.

The court considers Marin Le Pen to be guilty of the embezzlement of funds allocated to the work of her assistants, and in the concealment of "theft committed by other deputies of the European Parliament." Although the court decided that the members of the National Front did not extract personal enrichment from this scheme, it contributed to the enrichment of the party, which led to the “violation of equality” to the detriment of other parties.

The court decision caused a wave of indignation both in France itself (and not only among Le Pen's supporters) and abroad. Marin Le Pen does not plead guilty and calls the sentence politically motivated, discussing the “witch hunt”. The US President Donald Trump also called the sentence, according to him, this is “an example of how European left -wing weapons are used to drown out freedom of speech.” He considered the accusations against Le Pen Trump, similar to the “accounting error”, which Marin Le Pen probably knew nothing about and now used to stop her on the threshold of the “big victory”.

Trump was supported by US Vice-President Jay Di Wans: “She leads on some polls, and because of the incredibly insignificant accusation, which concerns her employees, and not Marin Le Pen, they are trying to put her in prison and cross out of the ballot. This is not democracy, ”Vance said about a waste of 4 million euros, in which, according to the conclusions of the court, Marine Le Pen personally participated as a deputy and organized as a party leader.

The press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov called the sentence “violating democratic norms”: “Our observations in European capitals say that they do not disdain out of democracy during the political process.”

Marine Le Pen has repeatedly been visiting the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban

Viktor Orban Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote on X (Twitter) in French on the day of the sentence: “Je Suis Marine!” (I am Marin!) To the rally of the National Association, held in Paris on April 6, on the first weekend after the sentence, Orban, like several more European allies of the right -Poopolistic “National Association”, recorded a video message in which he supported the convict. True, this rally turned out to be, to put it mildly, a little bitter. According to the police, about six thousand people came to support Le Pen, despite the fact that formally, according to hundredths, she now has the highest personal electoral rating in France.

The Court of Appeal of Paris said that the appeal decision will be made in the summer of 2026. In theory, this is good news for Le Pen, which has not yet refused to participate in the presidential race - 2027. However, even if the court of appeal cancel the initial decision of the court, the prosecutor's office is most likely to file a cassation appeal. And there is practically no chance that it will be able to consider it before the election of 2027. And this means that the political path of Marin Le Pen may come to an end.

The daughter of her father

Marine Le Pen is the youngest of the three daughters of the extreme right-wing French politician Jean-Mari Le Pen. And no matter how hard she tried to show independence, her political achievements in many respects is the inheritance that got from her father.

At the beginning of his career, Father Le Pen combined political activities with the military service. Having served several years in a foreign legion in Indochina, at the age of 28 he became one of the youngest deputies of the National Assembly from the extreme right of that time, which defended the rights of small merchants and artisans. Soon after his election to the French parliament, Le Pen took a vacation from deputy work to go to another colonial war - to Algeria. There he served as an intelligence officer and, according to the investigations of the French media, personally participated in torture.

Jean-Mari Le Pen founded his own party "National Front" in 1972. She had four more co -founders: the former SS soldiers Pierre Busk and Leon Eduard Gauthier, a member of the New Order neo -fascist movement, Francois Dupra and a former member of the extreme right -wing terrorist “secret army organization”, fighting for maintaining French influence in Algeria, the Olendr Roger. The party’s logo became red and blue “petals” of flame - that is, the colors of the French flag. According to a number of historians, this logo copied the symbol of the “Italian social movement”, a neo -fascist party created in Italy supporters of Mussolini.

"Historical" FN logo and MSI flame during a demonstration in Rome in 2012

Chamussy/Sipa/AFP

For a long time, the National Fleet was considered marginal power in France. In the European Parliament, party members first elected in 1984, and in the French National Assembly-in 1986. Then, in France, for a short time, deputies were chosen according to party lists (proportional systems), and not individually in the districts, which allowed the National Film Front to hold 35 deputies at once. Prior to the penultimate elections of 2022, this was a party record.

The personal political record of Le Pen is the presidential election of 2002, at which he went on the second round and received 17.8% of the vote. In total, during his career, he ran for the presidency five times and four of them took fourth place.

Despite the modest electoral successes, the fame of Jean-Mari Le Pen gradually grew. First of all, due to numerous scandals. Father Marin Le Pen was held by the court of law liable because of anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic statements, justification of the crimes of war, denying crimes against humanity, public insults, inciting hatred and other things. At the same time, he never recognized the fallacy of his views and did not make excuses, on the contrary, for saying that “gas chambers were only a detail of history”, Le Peni was judged six times, because he returned to this topic over and over again and insisted on his rightness.

For the statement “gas chambers were only the detail of history” Jean-Mari Le Pen were tried six times

Each attempt by the same party members to “normalize” the image of the National Front met with his resistance and ended with the split and the outcome of the “moderate” from the party. For example, in 1998, after Le Pen, during the campaign, attacked the representative of the social party party, a number of his former associates came out of the National Front, including the eldest daughter-Mari-Karolin Le Pen. In the same year, his youngest daughter - Marin came to work in the party.

Marine Le Pen and Jean-Mari Le Pen

Marin Le Pen, being the daughter of the extreme right -left policy of a populist sense, very early and very unusually encountered politics. In 1976, when Marin was 8 years old, a terrorist attack was committed against her father. In the house where they lived, unknown at night put a bomb. Only by a miracle during the explosion no one died. Marine Le Pen repeatedly said in an interview that this attack influenced her: “I needed that terrible night to find out that my father was involved in politics. And it was there, in dolling age, that I realized this terrible and incomprehensible thing for me: they did not treat my father as others, we were not treated with others equal to others. ”

Marin Le Pen joined the National Fleet, as soon as she turned 18 years old, but at first she did not participate in party life. She received a legal education at Pantheon-Assas University and began a lawyer's career, which did not work out too much. In 1998, Marin Le Pen left private practice and headed the legal service of the National Front.

Arriving in the party, the youngest daughter Le Pen, on the one hand, was engaged in the fight against dissent and got rid of the competitors of her father, on the other hand, she herself tried to improve the image of the party. For example, she participated in the work of her father during his 2002 presidential campaign, trying to make him less aggressive.

From anti -Semitian slogans to anti -migrant

In 2011, thanks to the support of Jean-Mari Le Pen, Marin was elected the leader of the National Front. The father and founder remained in the position of honorary chairman and expected, changing the image, to maintain control. But in 2015, after the next statement of the politician about gas chambers, the daughter achieved his exclusion from the party. Three years later, she changed the logo and even the name of the party, turning it into a “national association”.

After the death of Jean-Mari Le Pen, in January 2025, Marin Le Pen admitted that he would “never forgive himself”, which she excluded her father from the party, and called his anti-Semitic statements “provocations” for which he was not worth judging. However, the Le Pen itself has repeatedly spoke far from political correctly. For example, she was tried for a comparison of Muslims praying on the streets, with the Nazi occupation of France, so the gap of Marin Le Pen with his father, and therefore with a radical, almost fascist past, many observers consider nothing more than a political move.

But the matter, of course, is not only in statements. A characteristic example: six members of the National Association appeared before the trial in 2015 for the fact that on the night of April 8 to 9 they set fire to 13 cars in the small town of Mitri-Mori. After that, the leader of this group of “vigilant patriotic politicians”, Adrien Dessor wrote a penetrating blog about an unsafe environment in the city, where he called on voters to vote for him and for the party. It was the incitement of the growth to the visitors that was and remains the key ideological base of the party. Like other European ultra -right parties, the “national association” was seen by the Kremlin, who searched in the West, opposition political forces to create a coalition. And in the case of Le Pen, Moscow managed to achieve unprecedented success.

French friend Putin

In addition to the “dedemonization” of their own party, since the beginning of the 2010s, Marin Le Pen and her colleagues have been actively involved in the reputation of the Russian authorities. In 2011, preparing for her first presidential campaign, Madame Le Pen gave an interview in which she stated that it would be more profitable for France to “turn towards Russia”, with which she “has a lot of common interests in the civilizational and strategic plan”. At the same time, according to Le Pen, Russia is demonized by the French media, and politicians who advocate rapprochement with Russia require a lot of courage for this.

Since the beginning of the 2010s, Marin Le Pen and her colleagues have been actively engaged in the whitening of the reputation of the Russian authorities

“I believe that Russia is not actively developing relations with those European politicians and players who, like me, sympathize with it and are ready to promote this position,” said Le Pen, and at the end of the interview admitted that “to some extent admires Vladimir Putin,” who “has the character and vision of the future necessary to ensure that the prosperity that it deserves.”

Putin and Marine Le Pen

In 2012, in her presidential program, Le Pen proposed to create "Trilateral Union Paris - Berlin - Moscow." And her signals, of course, were heard in Moscow. In 2013, she first visited Russia, meeting with Sergey Naryshkin, Francophon, the current head of the foreign intelligence service, which was then the speaker of the State Duma. Le Pen told him about her indignation that "Russia was actually declared in the European Union. In the early 2010s, his niece Marine Le Pen, deputy of the National Front, Marion Maresal Le Pen, and the adviser Le Pen on international issues, Emerik Shoprad, and other people from the encirclement of the head of the National Fleet, also went to Russia.

In 2014, support for Russian interests went beyond visits and common admiration. Representatives of the French extreme right went to observe the “referendum” in the Crimea, as well as in the territory of the so -called “DPR” and “LPR”.

In 2014, representatives of the French extreme right personally went to watch the “referendum” in the Crimea

Marin Le Pen herself the day after the referendum imitation in the Crimea recognized its results. Judging by the information from the hacked correspondence of Russian officials, she did it at the request of the Kremlin. And a month later, the micropartican of Jean-Mari Le Pen Cotelec received 2 million euros from the Cyprus offshore, allegedly related to the Russian authorities. The intermediary in this transaction was Emerik Schopra, adviser Le Pen, who watched a referendum in the Crimea. There was no information that the money has ever been returned.

In the fall of 2014, it became known that the National Front itself has received 9 million euros on credit. Formally, not from Russia, but from the first Czech-Russian bank , through the mediation of the Euro-deputy Jean-Luke Shaffhauser and the Russian senator Alexander Babakov, one of the operators of the Kremlin’s foreign policy activity. Marin Le Pen then, of course, denied that she received money from Russian structures in exchange for support or some other services, explaining that she had to take a loan abroad, since French banks reluctantly give loans to her party.

After the annexation of the Crimea and the outbreak of war in the east of Ukraine, Marin Le Pen continued to express support to the Russian authorities, accusing the European Union of provoking the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, advocating the abolition of sanctions against Russia and repeating that the inhabitants of the Crimea themselves spoke out for joining Russia, and Crimea historically was part of the Russian Empire. Deputies from her party, in turn, continued to travel to Russia, to the annexed Crimea and cooperate with the Russian authorities. In 2015, the correspondence of the internal policy officer Timur Prokopenko showed that the Kremlin made great efforts to connect Le Pen to the legitimation of the annexation of Crimea.

In 2017, during her second presidential campaign, Marine Le Pen went to Moscow again. It was an unprecedented visit, because earlier the Russian authorities have traditionally evaded the direct support of one of the candidates during elections in other countries. This time, the French politician met personally with Vladimir Putin, who openly supported her, and not Emmanuel Macron, although he assured that he did not plan to intervene in French politics.

Then, during the debate, Le Pen actively spread the fake of the offshore of Macron, but this did not help her. In the second round, a traditional effect for France worked, known since 2002, when her father broke into the second round: there was an electoral mobilization of both left and centrists for someone, but against the candidate from the extreme right.

Nevertheless, the support in Moscow Le Pen did not seem to lose, the transparency of the subsequent loans of her party again raised questions. In 2017, her party received 8 million euros from the French businessman Laurent Fouche, allegedly related to the Russian authorities. And in 2022-10 million euros from the Bank from Hungary MKB, whose shareholders are businessmen close to Prime Minister Viktor Orban. He is the only European leaders after the beginning of full -scale Russian aggression against Ukraine did not hesitate to meet Putin and shook his hand.

In 2019, the Czech-Russian bank closed, and the debt of Le Pen moved to the company "Aviation", which is led by former employees of the Russian special services. In 2020, the extreme right party reached a settlement with the creditor and delayed the repayment of the loan before the end of 2028. А потом внезапно в 2023 году в «Национальном объединении» заявили , что погасили кредит досрочно.

К этому времени, надо заметить, позиция Ле Пен по России претерпела хоть и временные, но заметные изменения. В 2022 году она осудила российское вторжение в Украину, начав которое Путин, по ее словам, перешел «красную линию». Впрочем, даже после 2022-го в партии продолжала работать уроженка России с двойным гражданством, которую французская разведка называет возможным «проводником» российского влияния. Не говоря про бывших наблюдателей на разнообразных российских псевдореферендумах и имитационных выборах.

Даже после 2022-го в партии Ле Пен продолжала работать уроженка России с двойным гражданством, которую французская разведка называет возможным «проводником» российского влияния

Чтобы избавиться от ярлыка российских агентов, в 2023 году депутаты «Нацобъединения» сами инициировали расследование парламентской комиссии по иностранному вмешательству. Однако отбелить репутацию не удалось: в отчете комиссия снова отметила непрозрачность кредитной истории и «привилегированность» отношений между партией Ле Пен и Кремлем.

Поддержку на парламентских выборах 2024 года со стороны российского МИД Марин Ле Пен назвала «провокацией», которую можно приравнять к вмешательству в выборы. Однако, как и в случае со своим отцом, политик предпочла не сжигать мосты окончательно. «Россия всегда останется соседом Европы: история доказала, что вчерашние враги могут стать завтрашними союзниками. Не подливая масла в огонь, дипломатическими средствами мы сможем положить конец российскому нападению на Украину», — заявляла она в 2022 году.

Расхитительница средств Европарламента

Французская система финансирования политической деятельности ограничивает бюджеты небольших партий. «Национальный фронт» (после успеха 1986 года) по итогам всех выборов до 2017 года проводил в Национальное собрание максимум по одному депутату. В 2017 году от Нацфронта впервые избралось семь человек. В 2022-м обновленное «Национальное объединение» совершило прорыв, получив 82 места, а в 2024 году, на внеочередных парламентских выборах, инициированных Макроном, — 119.

Reference

Политические партии во Франции финансируются из двух источников.

Государственный бюджет. На объем финансирования влияют результаты парламентских выборов: часть денег партия получает по числу избирателей, проголосовавших в первом туре, вторую часть — по числу депутатов и сенаторов, прошедших в парламент.

Частные источники: членские взносы, отчисления из зарплат депутатов, добровольные пожертвования и прочее. Сумма частных пожертвований во Франции законодательно ограничена: один человек не может пожертвовать политическим партиям более 7500 евро в год. Пожертвования партиям от компаний во Франции запрещены.

Долгие годы нехватки финансирования Нацфронт компенсировал не только сомнительными займами, но и за счет относительных успехов на европейских выборах. Каждому избранному евродепутату Европарламента в разные годы выделялось от 20 до 30 тысяч евро для оплаты работы ассистентов, но Нацфронт ( и некоторые другие европейские депутаты ) фиктивно трудоустраивали на контракты ассистентов сотрудников партии, никак не связанных с работой Европарламента. Ле Пен разрешала своим депутатам в Европарламенте иметь только одного ассистента, а остальные деньги перечислялись в партию.

Марин Ле Пен впервые стала депутатом Европарламента в 2004 году, вместе еще с шестью коллегами по партии. И именно с 2004 года, согласно выводам французского суда, депутаты крайне правой партии начали использовать средства Европарламента для партийных нужд.

О нарушениях впервые стало известно в 2013 году, когда издание Mediapart сообщило , что Марин Ле Пен наняла в качестве парламентских ассистентов двух вице-президентов Нацфронта, отвечавших за ее президентскую кампанию 2012 года: Флориана Филиппо и Луи Алио. В то же время Алио был партнером Марин Ле Пен, и пара этого не скрывала .

Но официальное расследование началось только в 2015 году, когда выяснилось, что практика является системной и касается не отдельных депутатов, а всей партии.

«Европейская экономия» позволяла оплачивать не только услуги специалистов, работающих на партию во Франции, но и приближенных к семье Ле Пен людей. Например, зарплату ассистента евродепутата какое-то время получали охранник Жана-Мари Ле Пена, его личный секретарь, его дворецкий. Ассистенткой в европарламенте числилась личная помощница Марин Ле Пен Катрин Гизе, а также ее сестра (и мать Марион Марешаль) Ян Ле Пен, работавшая в Нацфронте.

Зарплату ассистента евродепутата получали охранник, личный секретарь и дворецкий Жана-Мари Ле Пена

Таким образом деньги налогоплательщиков шли не только на нужды партии, давая ей конкурентное преимущество, но и на завышенные зарплаты людям, так или иначе приближенным к руководству партии и к семье Ле Пен. «Эти фиктивные контракты также финансировали поддержание очень комфортного образа жизни с не менее комфортными зарплатами для близких и верных союзников», — говорилось в заявлении прокуратуры, требовавшей наказания в виде запрета избираться на государственные должности.

Устранение из политики для подобного рода дела — обычная для Франции практика. Всего несколько лет назад ровно то же самое случилось с экс-премьером Франсуа Фийоном, который фиктивно трудоустроил свою жену. Тем не менее Марин Ле Пен сравнивает себя с такими жертвами политических преследований, как Алексей Навальный и Экрем Имамоглу, или с борцами за справедливость , как Мартин Лютер Кинг, и говорит о намерении бороться до конца. Однако на первый митинг в ее поддержку пока пришло всего несколько тысяч человек.

Поражение или сброс балласта?

Есть и еще один важный момент. Для французских крайне правых устранение Марин Ле Пен может сыграть такую же добрую службу, как в свое время устранение из партии ее отца. У Марин Ле Пен не только самый высокий сейчас во Франции рейтинг . Большинство опрошенных также, по данным опроса , проведенного уже после вынесения судебного решения, либо безразличны к нему, либо его поддерживают. По их мнению, за использование общественных фондов в своих политических целях можно и нужно лишать права на участие в политической деятельности.

В то же время только 30% опрошенных говорят, что только Ле Пен могла привести французских ультраправых к победе. Есть ведь еще нынешний формальный лидер партии «Национальное объединение» Жордан Барделла, избранный на этот пост как раз после того, как судебное разбирательство перешло в активную фазу. Большинство (67%) опрошенных социологами из компании Elabe, на чей опрос ссылаются крупнейшие французские медиа, видят Барделлу по сути единственным возможным преемником Ле Пен и не исключают, что он будет успешен на предстоящих в 2027 году выборах.

67% процентов французов считают Жордана Барделлу удачным преемником для Марин Ле Пен

Электоральный рейтинг Барделлы сейчас ниже всего примерно на полпроцента, чем у его предшественницы во главе «Национального объединения», и это явно поправимо, с учетом того, что у него нет антирейтинга Ле Пен, накопленного ею самой и ее отцом примерно за шесть десятилетий.

Достаточно вспомнить, как все политики — и левые, и центристские, и даже некоторые правые в 2022 году — призывали не голосовать за Марин Ле Пен во втором туре, чтобы предположить, что ее удаление из публичной политики для партии «Национальное объединение» может оказаться не проблемой, а сбросом балласта. Полная ясность наступит только непосредственно перед выборами, когда станет ясно, кто окажется конкурентами ультраправых слева и на кого из центристов сделает ставку действующий президент Эммануэль Макрон, не имеющий права баллотироваться в третий раз.

Опять же, и Марин Ле Пен еще может попытаться успеть снять приговор через апелляцию и выиграть неизбежный в этом случае кассационный суд. «Национальное объединение» явно все это учитывает и, как отмечают французские медиа, не начинает игру в замену своего кандидата на президентский пост — кто знает, может, прощаться с Ле Пен еще рано.

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