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LeMonde
3 days ago
- Politics
- LeMonde
When racism escalates to far-right terrorism
Since the Algerian War, murders targeting individuals perceived as North African have punctuated the grim history of racism in France, to the extent that the term "Arabicide" was coined by the author of a book on the subject. Certain political rhetoric has inspired such crimes, including the murder of Ibrahim Ali, a young Frenchman of Comorian descent who was killed in 1995 in Marseille by a member of the Front National (now the Rassemblement National, RN) far-right party while posting campaign posters. However, never before had a racist murderer's intent to incite others to follow their example – thereby "disturbing public order through intimidation or terror," to use the French penal code's wording – led to a classification of "terrorism." After the murder of Hichem Miraoui, age 45, on Saturday, May 31, in the southern town of Puget-sur-Argens, the decision to involve France's national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office was based notably on the suspect's call to "go get them [foreigners] where they are," posted on social media. Christophe B., age 53, is now under investigation for "premeditated murder in connection with a terrorist undertaking, committed because of race or religion." This classification, which is appropriate, marks a first in cases of racist or anti-Muslim homicides. It reflects the emergence of a troubling threat: far-right terrorism. By combining calls for racist murder with appeals to vote for the RN in messages broadcast without any filter on Facebook and X, Christophe B. has highlighted the ambiguity, and even perversity, of the RN's rhetoric. The image of respectability crafted by party leader Marine Le Pen masks barely subliminal messages of hate from her supporters. The depiction of immigration as a "flood" responsible for all the country's ills, the conflation of Muslims with terrorists and the labeling of perpetrators of urban violence as "savages" have for years fostered a hostility toward foreigners that far-right groups or lone individuals are encouraged to translate into action. But this "ambient racism," in the words of Socialist leader Olivier Faure, has also been fueled by a growing portion of the political spectrum adopting the language of the RN. By denouncing "barbarians" after the incidents that occurred during the Paris Saint-Germain football victory celebrations, and by constantly placing Islam, Muslim and Algeria at the center of political debate, conservative Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, like other political leaders, fueled the hate machine. His condemnation of the "racist" crime in southern France and his description of racism as a "poison that kills" are therefore all the more commendable. Still, the frequent tendency to substitute a religious lens in lieu of an analysis of the racism and social relations underlying these crimes represents a regrettable step backward. Admittedly, the repeated shocks inflicted on French society by Islamist attacks are echoed in the hateful writings of Christophe B. However, his language, which includes racial slurs, seems primarily inspired by classic racism and xenophobia. By viewing the tragedy in Puget-sur-Argens solely through a religious lens before even knowing Miraoui's relationship to Islam, there is a risk of reducing him to a single trait and favoring the perspective preferred by all extremists. This murder should first and foremost prompt condemnation of any rhetoric that equates a religion, skin color, culture, nationality or foreign origin with a threat.
The Guardian
02-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
France's left is celebrating Le Pen's conviction. But gloating will make it harder to beat the far right
The verdict is in: the National Rally (NR) and its leader, Marine Le Pen, have been found to have employed fictitious European parliament assistants between 2004 and 2016. The fraudulent scheme enabled the misappropriation of around €2.9m in European funds, and Le Pen has now been barred from holding public office for five years. Could this mark the end for the National Rally? Highly unlikely – and the reason lies in the party's strategy. During the trial, Le Pen deliberately maintained silence in response to the allegations – a tactic some outlets dismissed as evidence of a weak defence, even questioning her credibility. Yet this quiet is far from a sign of weakness; it reflects a long-established approach that consistently shuns conventional manoeuvres in favour of an intentionally unpredictable stance. The origins of this strategy date back to 2011, when she set in motion the 'de-demonisation' of the NR. This was not just an exercise in recalibrating the party's image and rhetoric; it was a move to sever ties with the extremist legacy that had long marred her family's name. Her rebranding transformed the Front National into the National Rally and charted a new course for the party. This process also involved a purge of party members who openly endorsed the Vichy regime – a purge so uncompromising that it resulted in the banishment of her own father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. By casting him aside as a cornerstone of her de-demonisation campaign, she demonstrated a readiness to make brutal sacrifices. Now, she may well have to repeat this tactic, sacrificing herself to clear the path for the rise of the NR's prodigy, Jordan Bardella. At just 29 years old, Bardella embodies a generational shift that encapsulates the perils of a re-energised far right. His narrative infuses the party's appeal with a contemporary flavour, resonating particularly with young men. His proficient use of social media platforms such as TikTok has not only mobilised the party's base but also illustrated the evolving tactics of far-right organising in the digital age. Current opinion polls reveal that the NR is enjoying a notable surge in support. Now, with Marine Le Pen's conviction, Bardella may well be holding a winning hand – including the strategic weaponisation of his mentor's legal setback. This playbook has become alarmingly predictable. After the 6 January Capitol attack, Donald Trump dismissed his legal challenges as politically motivated witch-hunts, orchestrating a maddening comeback. (Asked on Monday about Le Pen's conviction, Trump said it was a 'very big deal' and 'very much like' what had happened in his own country.) The same drama unfolds in Europe. In Romania, far-right populist Călin Georgescu's futile appeal against a ruling barring him from the presidential race barely dampened his supporters' fervour; instead, they surged behind another far-right figure, George Simion, who now leads in the polls. Of course, both cases are dwarfed by the exploits of Silvio Berlusconi, the maestro of political comebacks. The late Italian former prime minister faced a barrage of charges – from abuse of office and bribery to extortion and paying for sex with an underage girl – yet in 2014 he managed to overturn his conviction, casting his legal battles as nothing more than politically motivated persecution. Yesterday, Marine Le Pen followed suit, insisting that her prosecution is a 'political decision' and 'a denial of democracy'. This is how the far right operates: when courts deliver unfavourable verdicts, these outcomes are reframed as proof of an orchestrated conspiracy, while any favourable decision is lionised as an indisputable victory for democracy. How should we deal with this playbook? First, we must not reproduce Le Pen's argument that her conviction was a political attack – especially not within the left, which should stand for dignity in these challenging democratic times. Defending her is indefensible; the courts exist to deliver justice, and no one is above the law. Second, Bardella's meteoric rise in the polls demands a swift response from the French left – the only political force capable of mounting a robust ideological counterargument against hate, economic isolation and the promotion of white supremacy. NR clearly has a long-term plan centred on Bardella, and there's little doubt that this strategy will resonate with voters in the wake of Le Pen's conviction. This is a call to arms for the leftwing France Unbowed and its leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon. It must renew the party, diversify its ranks and invest in emerging talent that resonates with younger voters – mirroring the approach of Die Linke in Germany – if it is to prevent the far right from advancing into Europe's centre for the first time since the second world war. Given that Elon Musk has tweeted several times in support of Le Pen, it is also crucial to recognise that the boundaries between global far-right movements are increasingly blurred, with their mobilisation tactics evolving rapidly. Democracies must confront this challenge head on and urgently unite against the far-right threat before it is too late. Georgios Samaras is assistant professor of public policy at the Policy Institute, King's College London
The Guardian
01-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
What is Marine Le Pen guilty of in National Rally embezzlement case?
After a nine-week trial, the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was this week found guilty of the embezzlement of European parliamentary funds through a fake jobs scam of an unprecedented scale and duration. She was banned from running for office for five years with immediate effect, which could prevent her making a fourth bid for the French presidency in 2027. She has said she will appeal against the verdict and sentence, which also included a four-year prison term – with two years suspended and two to be served outside jail with an electronic bracelet – and €100,000 (£84,000) fine. Le Pen was 'at the heart' of a carefully organised 'system' of embezzlement of European parliamentary funds, according to the ruling by Bénédicte de Perthuis, a judge specialising in financial crimes. From 2004 to 2016, taxpayer money allocated to members of the European parliament to pay their assistants based in Strasbourg or Brussels was instead siphoned off by the far-right National Rally (RN) party, which was then named Front National, in order to pay its own party workers in France. The staff in France had no connection to work undertaken at the European parliament. The court found there was 'no doubt' about the existence of the scheme which 'under cover of fictitious contracts' served to 'remunerate people who actually worked for the party or the party leaders' in France. This was estimated to have caused a loss to European funds of €4.8m (£4m). Le Pen, who was a member of the European parliament from 2004, as well as head of the party from 2011, was found guilty of directly organising eight fictitious contracts worth about €474,000. But the court said she was also at the centre of 'instigating' the wider fake jobs scheme which she undertook with 'authority' and 'determination'. Eight other European parliament members for RN were found guilty of being part of the scheme, alongside 12 people found to have had fictitious contracts as parliamentary assistants. Two accountants and the party treasurer were also convicted. Those found to have been paid for party work under fictitious European parliament assistant contracts included the full-time bodyguard of Le Pen's late father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, as well as his personal secretary. Also convicted was Marine Le Pen's sister, Yann Le Pen, who in fact worked on events for the party's central office in France. Le Pen and those convicted did not gain any personal financial benefit. The judge ruled 'there was no personal enrichment', but rather 'enrichment of the party'. The embezzlement scheme channelled money to fund Front National, which was in financial 'difficulty', the judges found. The party made 'large savings' by paying its centralised staff in France with European funds. Among documents cited in evidence by the judges was an email sent in June 2014 from the party treasurer to Le Pen outlining the party's financial troubles, saying: 'We'll only get through if we make big savings thanks to the European parliament …' The court said the salaries paid from European parliamentary funds to party workers were 'comfortable' amounts which the party could otherwise not have paid. The system had allowed a comfortable working life for party leaders, such as the party founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who had a secretary and bodyguard. He had been accused of being part of the scheme but did not stand trial due to ill health. He died, aged 96, in January. The judges said a broad range of evidence showed the contracts were fictitious and work was not carried out for the European parliament, but instead for the party. The judges cited a 2014 email from one member of the European parliament, who had previously been a lawyer, to the party treasurer: 'What Marine is asking is equivalent to us signing for fictitious jobs …' He warned this was likely to be spotted. 'I think Marine knows all that …' the treasurer replied. During the trial, the court heard that one party worker wrote in an email: 'I'd like to see the European parliament and that would also allow me to meet the member of the European parliament I'm attached to.' He had apparently never been to the European parliament where he was supposed to have been working for four months. No. During the trial Le Pen, like the others accused, told the court she was innocent. She said: 'I have absolutely no sense of having committed the slightest irregularity, or the slightest illegal act.' After the verdict she repeated she was innocent and said she would appeal. The judges noted in their verdict that the accused 'had not expressed any conscience of their violation of the law nor the importance of integrity'.
The Guardian
31-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
With this damning of Le Pen, France can be the ‘anti-Trump'. It's a bold path others should follow
The French justice system chose courage over surrender. The law was clear, and so was the court in its sentencing: no special treatment for Marine Le Pen, no deference to the powerful, no using a candidacy for office as an excuse to break the law with impunity. For more than a decade, from 2004 to 2016, Le Pen's reactionary rightwing party – named the Front National until 2018, when it became the Rassemblement National (RN) – operated an organised scheme to embezzle public funds by creating fictitious parliamentary assistant jobs at the European parliament, and to break other financial rules, in effect using European public money to finance a debt-ridden party domestically. Under a French anti-corruption law passed in 2016, the guilty verdict rendered against Le Pen comes with a sentence of ineligibility to run for office. The ban is for the next five years, effective immediately, which means that the sentence will hold all the way through an appeals process and will almost certainly torpedo any chance of her running for president in 2027. Many will see parallels between the RN's response to this verdict and the way that Donald Trump rallied the anger of his base last summer, after a court in New York found him guilty of a criminal hush-money scheme during the 2016 election. Indeed, Jordan Bardella, the 29-year-old likely successor to Le Pen (who led RN during the summer's unanticipated legislative elections), is already playing the victim card, declaring that French democracy has been 'killed.' There are a number of important differences, though. First, this is a much more serious case and conviction than the one against Trump: a hush-money payment might seem salacious, but this involved more than a decade of systematically defrauding the public of millions of euros and had real implications for French politics. During the time that the embezzlement was under way, the FN/RN was heavily indebted to a Kremlin-connected Russian bank. Paying off the debt helped the party claim it no longer maintained inappropriate links to Vladimir Putin's power circle – would it have been able to do so without the misused funds? And would it have been as competitive in the elections it contested without the unfair advantage of fraudulent finances? Second, with Le Pen herself ineligible to run in 2027, an angry base will have to transfer its support to Bardella or another potential challenger. As might be expected, many on the right are decrying the immediacy of the ineligibility sentence – but so is Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who broke from the rest of the left by declaring that the 'impeachment' of a politician should be 'left up to the people'. The Communist party, Greens and Socialists have, in various statements, underlined the importance of the rule of law and judicial independence. We will never know what would have happened if the US justice system had not totally failed at protecting the rule of law against an attempted coup d'etat. On the other hand, we know the consequences of not acting: the destruction of the rule of law and state capacity, the creation of a parallel system of prerogative and privilege from proximity to political power, and a slide towards outright fascism. But the law cannot be a substitute for politics, and the next judgment must be political. The far right has to be made to face its contradictions. It tells voters that the government is full of corrupt elites, or that immigrants are stealing social benefits – yet here are Le Pen and 24 other members of RN, convicted of the massive fraudulent use of public funds. It demands harsher sentencing from courts, and then plays the victim when it is handed harsh sentences. It superficially speaks the language of power, but what it really offers is weakness and submission – to Putin, to Trump. It doesn't seem like this verdict will substantially change the far right's message, or strategy; it was always going to claim victimhood at the hands of 'the elites'. But it is here, in this third contradiction – what the parties really are and what their vision is to remake society – that there is the greatest opportunity to beat it politically. The RN makes no secret about which company it keeps and attracts. The French court's verdict was decried by such paragons of the rule of law as the Kremlin ('a violation of democratic norms'), Elon Musk (of course), who denounced an 'abuse' of the judicial system, and Viktor Orbán, who posted: 'Je suis Marine!' Exactly. Orbán is Marine; Putin is Marine; Trump is Marine. By trying to link their illiberal behaviour across borders, leaders of the reactionary right have given defenders of liberal democracy a playbook to follow. It strikes me as odd that, so far, few European politicians have seen the explosive benefit to be had in positioning themselves as a kind of 'anti-Trump', as the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, has done to such effect, despite his country being far more vulnerable to US aggression than most of Europe is. Perhaps, in fact, that vulnerability has allowed him to see the stakes more clearly – or at least, to be more honest about them with the Canadian public. In polling from February, a worrying 48% of French people said 'nothing moves in democracy, there should be less democracy and more effectiveness'. I don't think people actually want less democracy, though; I think they want to feel like someone is standing up and fighting for them, and it's well past time that liberal democracy became as vociferous in defence of itself as its critics are against it. Trumpism is the perfect foil, in part because it's so deeply unpopular with European voters, who see it in action and who in response support the EU more than ever before, including broad popular support (even in the UK) for a European defence union. Sign up to This is Europe The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans – from identity to economics to the environment after newsletter promotion When it comes to the RN, submission is tied up with the name of the party itself. In 1936, a journalist asked Philippe Pétain, the French general and hero of the battle of Verdun, what the nation needed. 'Rassemblement national,' (a national rally) replied Pétain, who, only four years later, would surrender his country to the Nazis and lead its collaborationist Vichy government. In the US, the legal system submitted to the idea that the pursuit of justice and defence of the rule of law would disturb 'unity'. In France, it has not. I think we'll find that courage will pay off in the end. Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist
The Guardian
31-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Marine Le Pen verdict throws far-right party into chaos two years before election
It is a political earthquake that is almost certain to end Marine Le Pen's ambitions for the 2027 presidential election and throws her far-right party into chaos just as it was setting its sights on taking power in France. Barred from running for political office for five years with immediate effect after being convicted of embezzling European funds for her party, Le Pen's political future is now thrown into doubt. She will most likely not be able to mount a fourth campaign for the presidency in two years' time. The conviction of Le Pen and 24 other party members for embezzlement of European parliament funds is a huge blow to a far-right party that has long tried to present itself as the honest, squeaky-clean alternative to old-school politicians with their hands in the till. 'Head high, clean hands' was once a slogan of the far-right, anti-immigration Front National – now renamed the National Rally – to distance itself from what it called greedy traditional politicians' crooked ways. Le Pen's punishment – which she had earlier likened to a 'political death sentence' – is all the more personally damaging because she began her political career styling herself as anti-corruption crusader, saying in a TV debate in 2004: 'Everyone has taken money from the till except the Front National … The French are sick of seeing politicians embezzling money. It's scandalous.' The party president, Jordan Bardella, 29, who is popular but inexperienced, could now become a replacement figure for the presidential race, but nothing is certain. As the party met for crisis talks on Monday, he said French democracy had been 'executed' by the 'unjust' verdict. Le Pen and fellow party workers have been found guilty of serious charges: the systematic embezzlement of European taxpayer funds. The court found that between 2004 and 2016, the anti-immigration party set up an extensive system of fraud in which they took money intended solely for European parliament assistants to instead pay staff who worked for the party at its head office in France – including a bodyguard and private secretary. The scam cost the European taxpayer – which includes French taxpayers – at least €4m (£3.35m). The French state prosecutor had told the court that Le Pen's party treated the European parliament like a 'cash cow' and set up a centralised, highly organised 'war machine' to embezzle European funds, which they used to illegally finance the cash-strapped party 'in violation of all basic rules'. During the two-month trial, the court heard how the embezzlement system was brazen. In an email to Marine Le Pen, one party worker, who was supposed to have been employed as a parliamentary assistant for four months, wrote: 'I'd like to see the European parliament and that would also allow me to meet the member of the European parliament I'm attached to.' He had apparently never been to the European parliament, where he was supposed to work. Another supposed parliamentary assistant made only one phone call to his member of European parliament in 11 months, and there were no documents showing any work took place. The party showed 'contempt for public funds that came from the pockets of their own voters', a French state prosecutor had told the court during the trial. But it is likely that the core of Le Pen's electorate will rally behind her. The verdict and sentence could even boost political support for the far right. Le Pen was not accused of personally lining her pockets, but of channelling the money to the party. She has routinely called the case a political attack on her, saying judges wanted her 'political death'. The guilty verdict and strong sentence, barring her from running for office with immediate effect, serves her victimisation narrative that there is an elite out to get her and her party and stop her political career. Senior party figures said, before the verdicts, that convictions could actually increase support for the National Rally in France. Certainly, the US's Donald Trump has shown you can keep political support even with a criminal conviction. For more than a decade, Le Pen has tried to make her far-right, anti-immigration party appear mainstream and respectable to a wider electorate. That endeavour is now damaged, even if she positions herself as a victim. Le Pen's ideas – including increasing police numbers and banning the Muslim headscarf in all public places – have steadily gained support among the French public, and the National Rally party emerged as the single largest party in parliament after the 2024 snap parliamentary elections, even if a left alliance and tactical voting held them back. The question now is how the 50-year-old party prepares for the 2027 presidential race if it must run for the first time without a Le Pen as a candidate – without Marine, or her late father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
