French political earthquake: Le Pen found guilty, where will the political landscape go?

Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's far-right National Alliance party, was found guilty of embezzlement on March 31, sentenced to four years in prison, two of which were served at home in electronic shackles, and barred from running for public office for five years, with immediate effect. The verdict not only changed Le Pen's personal political fate, but also cast a thick fog over the future direction of French politics.

As an important figure in French politics, Le Pen's political career has ups and downs. Since leading the National Alliance (formerly the National Front) in 2011, she has worked to bring the party closer to the mainstream, trying to tone down its extremes and broaden its voter base. In 2017 and 2022, Le Pen twice participated in the French presidential election and entered the second round of voting, although both lost to the incumbent president Macron, but the vote rate continued to rise, in the 2022 election, she won 41.5% of the vote, showing strong political influence and widespread popular support.

At the heart of the ruling was Le Pen's alleged embezzlement of 4 million euros intended for European Parliament assistants to pay the salaries of National League staff between 2004 and 2016, which the judges concluded amounted to a "double deception" of the European Parliament and voters. In addition to Le Pen, the National Alliance was sentenced to a 2 million euro fine, and 23 other defendants were found guilty, with varying prison terms. Insisting that it was a "political verdict" and the deliberate end of her political life, Le Pen walked out of the court before the verdict, accusing it of being an attack on the "will of the people" and that the French justice system had been weaponized.

From the perspective of the French domestic political landscape, this judgment has caused a huge shock and controversy. Le Pen has a large number of supporters in France, and her political ideas, such as opposing immigration, advocating France's withdrawal from the eurozone, reducing the financial contribution to the EU, etc., cater to some French people's demands for national sovereignty, economic development and social security. Now, she is barred from running, no doubt to the anger and disappointment of these supporters, the National Alliance will not easily accept the result, Le Pen has said that he will appeal, even if the appeal, it is likely to be too late to change the outcome of the 2027 election. The incident is likely to exacerbate the rifts in French society and trigger more social unrest, which will not be followed by mass protests and street movements.

Within French politics, there has long been a bitter struggle between different political factions. Le Pen's far-right has been on the rise in recent years, posing a powerful challenge to the traditional political landscape. The verdict, seen by some as a crackdown on the far right by traditional political forces, further highlights the sharpening tensions within French politics. Looking back at French political history, similar political figures have been significantly affected by judicial issues is not rare cases, such as former President Sarkozy has been sentenced several times, Prime Minister Bayrou has also been involved in the embezzlement case (although he was acquitted, but the prosecution is still appealing), former President Chirac, former Prime Minister Juppe has also been sentenced. These phenomena reflect that there are complicated problems in political struggle, power balance and judicial supervision in French politics, and the political ecology is in an unstable state for a long time.

At the international level, the incident has also attracted wide attention. Us Vice President Vance had previously accused Europe of an internal threat to retreat from fundamental values shared with the United States and play fake democracy, and Le Pen's verdict undoubtedly gave the United States an excuse to interfere in the internal affairs of France and even Europe. Trump, Vance, Musk, and others have expressed sympathy and support for Le Pen, and Musk pointly pointed out that when the radical left cannot win through democratic voting, it will abuse the legal system to imprison opponents, which is their standard script around the world. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has publicly endorsed Le Pen, and Russia has strongly condemned France for "trampling on democratic norms." These international reactions show that the Le Pen incident has gone beyond the scope of French domestic politics and become a focus of the international political game, exacerbating the contradictions and differences between the United States and Europe, and between different political forces within Europe.