Le Pen ruling unleashes wave of hypocrisy on populist right

Japan Times

09-04-2025

In a democracy, the rule of law is not an option, but the very condition of its existence: Impartial, unyielding and blind to power.
But this ideal is increasingly under siege. Not from anarchists or revolutionaries, but from the self-proclaimed defenders of law and order, namely far-right parties in Europe and beyond. France's Marine Le Pen — convicted last week in a national court for embezzling over €4 million in European Parliament funds — is a case in point.
The verdict against the leader of the French National Rally was unambiguous: Le Pen and her party systematically diverted money intended for parliamentary assistants to pay for National Rally staff in France, audaciously flouting European Union regulations.
Her response was not contrition, but indignation. 'Incroyable,' Le Pen fumed, storming out of the courtroom while decrying the ruling as 'unbelievable.' Facing a five-year ban from public office, Le Pen, currently the front-runner to become France's next president, now joins a chorus of populist leaders who cry persecution when the law they so loudly exalt holds them accountable.
The evidence against Le Pen is overwhelming, the product of a meticulous, years-long investigation by the European Anti-Fraud Office. Prosecutors laid bare a scheme of fake contracts, falsified time sheets and bank records that traced the misappropriated funds across several years. Aides testified that their work bore no relation to EU parliamentary duties, their salaries merely a conduit for party coffers.
Le Pen's defense, thin as it was, rested on claims of political targeting — a plea the court dismissed. This was not a vendetta but justice, impartial and resolute. The National Rally must now repay the funds, a financial blow matched only by the political cost: With Le Pen sidelined, the 2027 presidential race is thrown into chaos, her party's future uncertain.
Yet Le Pen and her allies have turned their guns on the judiciary itself, following a script rehearsed across the globe. U.S. President Donald Trump, humiliated by his 2020 election defeat and charged with multiple crimes, has repeatedly branded America's courts as 'rigged' and his administration is constantly seeking to test the limits of the judicial system.
In Brazil, former President Jair Bolsonaro faces scrutiny over his family's finances, has denounced judges as 'activists' and threatened to defy their rulings. He will also stand trial for allegedly plotting a military coup to stay in power. Back in Europe, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has methodically dismantled judicial independence, cloaking this self-serving maneuver as reform.
The pattern is stark: Law is sacrosanct until it bites, and history offers a grim echo of this hypocrisy. In the Italy of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, the 1926 'exceptional laws' stripped judges of autonomy, turning courts into tools of state power. Dissenters were purged, replaced by loyalists who rubber-stamped the will of 'Il Duce.'
In Nazi Germany, the People's Court bypassed all semblance of due process, delivering summary judgments that propped up Hitler's regime and criminalized opposition. The erosion of judicial independence was the first step toward tyranny; once the courts bent to the ruler's political whim, no checks remained on executive excess.
Today's far-right parties have not yet plunged to these depths — although Trump is laying the foundations to defy the courts — but their rhetoric treads dangerously close. When Le Pen assails the French judiciary as a tool of shadowy elites, she channels a dangerous precedent, one that ends not in democracy, but despotism.
Her supporters, of course, see it differently. They cry witch hunt, pointing to a broader mistrust in institutions that has festered amid economic stagnation and cultural unease. Already less than half of the French public trusts their judiciary according to some estimates, a dangerous trend fueled by perceptions of elitism and inefficiency.
Le Pen's base, primed to see conspiracy in every setback, views her conviction as proof of a biased establishment. But the evidence says otherwise as France's judiciary has a robust record of holding the powerful to account, irrespective of ideology.
Former President Jacques Chirac, whose career spanned the left and right of the political spectrum, was convicted in 2011 for misusing public funds. Conservative hero Nicolas Sarkozy, another former head of the Elysee, faced judgment in 2021 for illegal campaign financing. Francois Fillon, once prime minister under Sarkozy, was sentenced in 2020 for a fake jobs scandal not unlike Le Pen's.
Moreover, Le Pen has enjoyed every safeguard of due process and retains the right to appeal, which she says she will pursue. No credible evidence suggests that political interference tainted the trial. The claim of victimhood is a tactic to rally a base that prefers outrage to accountability — but at a cost.
When legal consequences are recast as persecution, the judiciary ceases to be a pillar of stability and becomes a culture war battleground. Trust crumbles and with it, the foundation of democratic order. The 2023 French riots sparked by a police shooting already exposed the fragility of society's faith in institutions. Populist assaults on the courts threaten to widen that fracture into a chasm.
Le Pen's ban risks galvanizing her followers, who see her as a martyr, even as it emboldens her rivals. This is the paradox of populist justice: Accountability breeds resentment, not reckoning. Yet the greater danger lies in the precedent. From Washington to Budapest, far-right group's selective embrace of the law undermines the very order they claim to uphold. Le Pen's saga is not just a French story — it is a test for the West, where populist tides continue to swell.
The rule of law is not a weapon to be wielded against foes nor a convenience to be discarded when it stings. It is a shield that protects us all. Politicize it and we risk everything.
Le Pen's downfall proves that no one, however loud or popular, stands above judgment. But it also acts as a warning that when trust in the law collapses, so does the democracy it sustains, inviting chaos. The question is, are we willing to pay that price?
Thomas O. Falk is a London-based political commentator and journalist.