“Incredible.” That was the single word uttered under her Breath Marine Le Pen As She Stormed Out of A Paris Courtroom This Morning.
She Left The Early – Just Before Hearing Strings For Office Five Years Found Guilty of Embezzlement Empes – Almost Certainly Ruling Her Out to Standing 2027 Presidential French Election.
Without Even Waiting For The Judge to Pronounce the Full Details, The Head of The National Rally Knew That Her Politial Goose Was Cooked.
There should be no reprieve pending appeal. The Bar On Running for Office Was Real and Immediate.
A Four-Year Prison Sentence, of Which Will Be Suspended, Will Be Hold Pending Appeal.
BUT Her Political Plans Are Dead.
Le Pen’s Incredulity Can Be Better Excused, Perhaps, In The Context Of The Moment.
A consensus Had Almost Across France’s Police World’s Polence World’s Court Could Not, Would Not – In The End – Take Place.
It was not Just Le Pen’s Followers Who Said It. Her Enemies Agreed, From Jean-Luc Melenchon on The Far Left to Prime Minister François Bayrou in The Center and Justice Minister Gérard Darmanin on The Right.
All Said that Marine Le Pen was too important to Figure to Be Removed From The Political Scene at The Stroke of A Judge’s Pen.
All Sought Legal Argument From Justification. There’s No Was Requirement for the Judge, Perthuis Bénédicke, to Order Immediate from Ignining Ignining From Inexiling. The Judge Had latitude. Ms de Perthuis OOUT OOUT THE NATIONAL CONTEGT, AND THE AFFRONT DONOCRACY FOR THE DEMOCRACY FOR THE FRONT-RUNNER FOR THE 2027 Presidential Election Were to Be Disbarred From The Race.
Buty Were All Wrong. The Judge Said That The Law Was The Law.
The Law Had Fact Recently Toughened – By Very Politicians Who Were Now Complaining About ITPPLication – To Make The Penalty for Public Funds Very Severe. Well, Said the Judge in So Many Words, Now Let Politicians Suck Up Their Own Medicine.
Maybe Marine Le Pen Was Naïve in Not Predicting This Outcome. It Certainly Appears As IF National Rally Party Was Singularly unprepared.
So in themselves an Emergency Session After The Verdict, Party Leaders Are in a dilemma.
Do they continue as if there is still a Chance Marine Le Pen Will Run in 2027?
In Theory There is Still A (Small) Possibility. She has already launched an appeal. The Appeal Could Be Accelerated And Take Place at The End of this Year or Early 2026. A verdict Would in the Spring.
The Appeal Hearing Could In an Ineligibility of Shorter, Or Remove It Altogether – in What Case She Could Still Run. But the Chances must be regarded as slim.
OR, Should They Proceed With Plan B – That is to Say, President of the 29-Year-Old Party President Jordan Bardella As de facto
That might be a more realistic Assessment of What Lies Ahead. But to turn to bardella too quickly be unseemly. And Anyway, Not Everyone in The Party Is A Fan.
Behind Marine Le Pen, Everyone Could Unite. Beard Bardella, Not So Much.
On this, and on So many other questions, The Fall-out of The Political Earthquake Is Unclear.
What, for example, Will The Effect Be On The Rn Vote?
In The Short Term We Can Expect an Outcry, And A Boost To The Party’s Support. Why? Because What Happened Fits So Neatly Into The Rn Narrative That The Populist Is A Victim of the “System”.
No-One Likely to Vote for The Rn Seriously Holds It Against Marine Le Pen For Illegally Financing Her Party Using EU Parliament Funds. They all know that every French political party has resorted to the painting in the pain.
By the same token, Her “Draconian” Punishment – Being Banned From The Presency – Will Be Interpreted As A Badge of Honor: Proof That St. Standing Up To Powers-That-Be.
Longer term, thought, The Boost May Not Be Powerful. The Truth is that Marine Le Pen is a huge asset to the rn. This Battle-Hardened, Sentimental, Cat-Loving, Tough-Talking, Long-suffering Woman Is Held In Huge Supporters, Who Feel They Know Her Personally.
Jordan Bardella Is A Popular Figure Too, But Age Age It is Her Shoes Her Shoes. With Marine Le Pen Out of the Picture, The Rn Loses Much of ITSPeal.
What Is Certain Is Many-Be Candidates on The French Right Wing – Like Former Interior Minister Bruneau Retailleau – Themselves for Bardella Candidacy.
The Other Unknown Is Vengeance.
Marine Le Pen Remains A Member of the National Assembly, Where She Leads A Bloc of 125 – The Parliament’s Biggest. Till NOW NOW THAT SIZEBLE BLOC TO ATTEPT TO BRING Down The Beleaguered Prime Minister Francois Bayrou, Who Struggles Having No Having No Majority.
Those Days May Be Over.
Why Should You Do Any Way, Now, They Will Be Saying at Rn HQ. Why Not Bring The House Down?
