Marine Le Pen banned from running in 2027 and given four-year sentence
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Le Pen is the person responsible, as is her party: Don't commit crimes, don't make leaders of people who commit crimes, and you won't have problems.
Yes, there is a potential for abuse, but eliminating the rule of law for political leaders is very dangerous. (Edit: You can't take a popular vote on whether someone - especially a political leader, and one in a populist movement - committed a crime.)
Not to be disrespectful, but this is naive.
In a perfect world only "real" crimes would be prosecuted.
But almost every despot prosecuted their opponents by claiming they were criminals. Remember Nelson Mandela spent decades in prison as a criminal. The leaders of the KPD & SPD parties were both arrested as criminals during Nazi Germany. Putin has arrested many of his opponents, citing criminal behavior.
Saying "don't commit crimes" overlooks that the "crimes" themselves may not be real.
You are reaching far beyond France to South Africa's minority dictatorship and Nazi Germany for examples. The latter is a great example of political leaders with impunity.
Can you provide any examples at all in modern democracies, at any level of government?
- Belarus, same thing.
- Ukraine, same thing.
They're all in Europe, too.
- Israel, where the Netanyahu's trial is commonly seen (by both sides!) as a way to prevent Netanyahu from serving as the PM.
- Arguably, US with the Trump conviction.
These are the ones I'm personally aware of, it's more than likely there are better examples.
(In a "no true scotsman" way of thinking, it's easy to debunk any such cases by saying they're bad examples of a democracy. Then again, it's the same argument with any political system — proponents of communism will say that communism was never implemented properly, for example.)
I don't know what that means, but Russia is not a democracy - the people don't have self-determination to choose their government. Nor is Belarus.
Anyway, what are these examples of? When in a real democracy has a court corrupted the democratic process? Not in Ukraine either - their laws just push off elections during wartime IIRC. And was that done by the courts? Have they jailed the opposition?
> Arguably, US with the Trump conviction
Trump was elected after that!
How do you determine this though? There are candidates. Majority of the people vote. The one voted for the most wins.
Sure, _some_ candidates are in jail (or dead) — but that's strictly because they were convicted in a fair trial, they're criminals, you see.
I argue that there are similarities between two regimes blacklisting political candidates from the democratic process.
> When in a real democracy
If we cherry-pick the ones we like to be "real", and the ones we dislike to be "fake", then by definition the "real" ones are the good ones.
> Not in Ukraine either
E.g. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/20/ukraine-suspen...
Sure, not a court per se — it was apparently the country's national security and defense council that took the decision to ban the parties from any political activity.
But I agree, it's whatever.
> Trump was elected after that!
Yep, despite well-documented efforts to block him from running. The outcome is I think a win for democracy. That democrats think of this as a defeat is amusing to me. (I'm an foreigner and don't live or vote in the US, so no horse in the race either way.)
> How do you determine this though?
By not wasting time on intentional time-wasting arguments.
> That democrats think of this as a defeat is amusing to me.
Not most Democrats that I've seen - they wanted the law followed (for future reference: Democratic party members are Democrats, those who favor democracy are democrats).
Consider 18 USC 1343:
> Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
A politically motivated prosecutor willing to stretch phrases like "property" and "false ... representations" could use 18 USC 1343 to turn minor infractions into federal felonies with the prospect of 20 years in prison. It's entirely up to the prosecutor to ensure that the atomic bomb of 18 USC 1343 is applied only to conduct that actually warrants such extreme charges.
I'd note that, had Jim Comey been willing to push the law as far as the words would allow, he would've had a legal basis to prosecute Hillary Clinton for felonies relating to handling of classified information: https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-dir.... Comey's statement in connection with the decision to recommend no charges is instructive:
> Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent. Responsible decisions also consider the context of a person’s actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past.
Most importantly, whatever the prosecutor does they cannot convict someone. That must be done by a court, an independent agency (in the US).
Tellingly, you’re phrasing that in the passive voice, as if “the law” is “enforced” by higher beings sitting outside the political process. It is not. The enforcement of criminal laws is a political act, performed by political actors. And it is an inherently discretionary political act. Prosecutors actually have no obligation to enforce the law in every circumstance.
> There is no perfect solution but that isn't an argument for lawlessness, especially for powerful political leaders.
It’s not an argument for lawlessness, but rather an argument for viewing the political act of law enforcement as being secondary to the ultimate political act of electing leadership in any scenario where those two things could be seen as being in conflict.
Put differently, you have to see prosecution and elections as political acts that both seek to vindicate the will of the people. After all, criminal prosecutions are brought on behalf of the People to vindicate the public interest in law and order, not private rights. So it’s perfectly legitimate to ask whether, under particular circumstances, it’s more important to enforce some criminal law—especially one unrelated to elections—or whether it’s more important to ensure the public can choose its leaders through elections.
But this is what we get if embezzlement (and insurrection) go unpunished. Someone we look to outside and above the legal system to mete out retribution.
Thus, in some extreme cases, the remedy for misconduct should be elections, or impeachment, not prosecutions.
Why? This is de facto what we have in America. It’s lead to neo-Peronism. It doesn’t work.
The next Democrat candidate could recapitulate Trump’s January 6th pardons by promising to pardon anyone who burns down Teslas. If the rest of their platform is tenable, and if the Tesla fires are a few years in the past, the electorate might be fine with that. (Or not. Either way, the damage gets done.)
Do that for long enough and the public will demand someone outside the political system to rule over it. If you leave the final word on corruption to the political system, the system will evolve an autocratic element that polices itself.
I hope you are not comparing those things - one trying to overthrow democracy and killed people, the other vandalism that damages cars.
One can compare things without equating them. In this case, yes, I am comparing them. (In the end, both have—to date—been nothing more than destruction of property and trespassing. Getting killed being an idiot isn’t the same as killing people.)
If you read my comments (maybe not in that one?), I agree and say that often. We must work with human institutions; that's not argument that they can't work, work well, or are useless. I can't think of an advanced democracy that has used that discretion to block a serious candidate (one who could win).
> It’s not an argument for lawlessness, but rather an argument for viewing the political act of law enforcement as being secondary to the ultimate political act of electing leadership in any scenario where those two things could be seen as being in conflict.
It would allow political actors to break laws with impunity - probably the most dangerous threat to the rule of law is from powerful political actors - simply because there is an election in the future.
America is currently ann argument against popular democracy. Before we concede that electoral politics don’t work in a world with social media, maybe we can give increased prosecutorial discretion a chance. The alternative, after all, is just more authoritarian.
The problem that prosecutorial discretion will have to overcome is selective enforcement, or the perception thereof. The right wing European media is claiming this was common practice across parties. Now I don't know the truth of it, but it is a hard thought to get out of ones head, and a hard negative to prove.
wrt Le Pen, I find it noteworthy that evey English news article I have read avoids describing the actual crime [1], Which does seem more substantial than 99% of the Trump cases.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2024/09/30/w...
That said, in what ways do you think France is different?
This means the POTUS can decide who gets investigated and charged for a crime, and who doesn't get investigated and who gets charges dropped.
The executive can investigate its enemies, and ignore or drop charges for its friends.
Prosecutors are formally under executive control but since 2013 the justice minister should not give orders on individual cases.
France has an additional layer of independence compared to the U.S. because of the juge d’instruction (investigating judge), who is supposed to be independent from the executive like the courts judges, unlike prosecutors.
I say in principle because judges are appointed in France and not elected (similarly to federal judge in the US from what I understood). The executive as some control through appointments and career advancements but they are not supposed to use it to sanction or reward the judges.
The effectiveness of these independence mechanisms remains a subject of active debate, as evidenced by the relatively recent changes made to them.
We have non-FPTP jurisdictions. They still default to partisanship. (The problem is probably too many elections, not enough reliance on appointment and selection by lot.)
There’s a reaction throughout the entire west to free trade and immigration. In America, a plurality of voters supported the guy who promised mass deportations and tariffs, and now they’re getting exactly what they voted for. Maybe they won’t like the results, maybe they’ll be thrilled with them. The results will simply inform the next vote. What’s deeply broken are european systems that are trying to maintain liberalism at the expense of democracy.
But not all the european countries. Denmark and Sweden have retrenched on liberalism in the area of immigration—Denmark’s youngest generation is now more Danish than the population as a whole—and have largely solved the political polarization over the issue. That’s democracy working very well.
Sure. And when the Athenians recalled Alcibiades [1] or put Socrates to death, that was democratic. I’m not arguing it’s not democratic. I’m arguing those were self-destructive acts that show the system didn’t work.
Note that I’m making a distinctly illiberal argument. In that, I dovetail with Trump’s supporters.
Voters being able to override elite consensus to effectuate change to make the country more like what they want is the system working!
If immigration were the only thing this administration were doing we wouldn’t be having this debate.
The system isn’t working. We’re deterministically heading towards a world where we’re poorer and less secure based on policies (tariffs on Europe, Canada and Mexico) and people (Lutnick, Hegseth) that weren’t ever brought up in the election. Even if that had been campaigned on, the fact that the majority chooses stupid policies is an indictment of electoral politics. If the system “working” leads to its own destruction, it doesn’t work.
And that's certainly liberal - that is the same foundation of classical liberalism and modern left-wing liberalism.
It's absurd to suggest otherwise; it's pointless arguments about verbiage. Nobody wants mob rule, nobody thinks of democracy without human rights and indvidual freedom, either scholars or the general public.
> It’s about people being able to vote to live in the kind of society they want.
Why should they get to decide en masse what people do individually? That's just dictatorhip of the majority, of the mob. Freedom is what the US and democracy are about.
> Democracy is not about free trade, or protecting immigrants, or the like.
It is; it's about freedom.
I think you hit the nail on the head with this.
We don't have honor as a social parameter any longer, so lives and fortunes lack the oomph of honor.
Granted, we also avoid the historically evinced drawbacks of honor-based societies, but we seem to have thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
Letting judges bar someone from running for office is silly though, if French law allows that they should reconsider; if someone is popular enough to win a national election despite a reasonable criminal conviction they are popular enough to threaten the civil order if they are barred from office.
In fact, I think the conflict between law enforcement and politics in the Le Pen case is largely self-inflicted. There was no need to include the constraint on running for office in the punishment. And it seems like the wrongful conduct ended in 2017. Why did it take so long to work through to a verdict?
Not in France. You Brits and Americans have that weird Common Law system that relies on broad "laws" (more principles, really), judicial precedent and court decisions, whereas France and most of the world's judiciaries adopted Romans and Napoleon's Civil law system where the legislators write detailed legal codes that the courts then apply.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law_(legal_system)
Honestly, for me, Common Law is a medieval sh*tshow where nothing is really legally certain...
...Which is why civil law is the system of 150 countries /s
- innocent people convicted in court in error
- laws selectively enforced where this person never gets charged, yet this person gets put in prison for the exact same thing
- a byzantine legal code that the average person can't understand ("show me the man, and I'll show you the crime")
Now take that and layer on top a competitive legal system where your political opponent doesn't have to defeat you at the ballot box, they can just get you disqualified by having you convicted of a crime.
It's a system that is ripe for abuse.
Bobby Sands sticks out for me - a member of the Provisonal IRA who became a Member of Parliament while in British Prison. I thought it reflected quite well on the UK - despite this man committing violent acts in an effort to break Northern Ireland away from the UK, he was allowed to stand in Parliament of the very same system.
Then look at the Singapore system - even a relatively minor conviction like defamation (a fine only) will disqualify you from office. A fact the ruling party has used again, and again and again to eliminate opposition politicians once they get popular enough.
Democracy has done very well in that regard. The US is an exception, in many ways, in that it generally won't prosecute current heads of state. Netanyahu is being prosecuted and investigated for another crime, even after abusing power to avoid it. France has charged sitting high officials, so have others.
- Keeping people out with questionable character?
- Preventing crimes from being committed while in office?
Neither of those are all that convincing. Voters will be aware of the criminal past of any candidate. They can make their own personal judgement when they vote.
And I’m not sure what you mean by democracy has “worked well in that regard except for the US”.
If your goal is to ban people with criminal records to prevent corruption, there are plenty of democracies with a far worse track record when it comes to democracy than the US.
The only way to keep things fair is to exclude those who deliberately flaunt the rules, as is the case here.
But even aside from that, someone who deliberately breaks the rules isn't fit to enforce them.
To give an American example, if someone deliberately broke Jim Crow laws in the South they should be disqualified from office?
The problem with this approach is that it assumes court decisions are always just and correct. Based on numerous examples I don’t think that’s a reasonable assumption.
Versus the opposite approach which says criminal convictions don’t automatically disqualify you, it’s up to the voters to decide if you’re fit for office.
Who's to say that you won't use your new power to help your party colleagues get away with the same crime, but this time without the public knowing about it?
So if we create a system that allows people to be banned from holding political office how do we stop it from being abused?
We know that justice is subjective, and mistakes can be made.
I would point to Singapore as an example where defamation laws are routinely used to prevent opposition politicians from holding office.
Unless a justice system is captured by one party (like in the US), I trust it more to determine the truth than I trust politicians that want to abuse such "loopholes".
My father straight up told me: I know nothing of this case, but it's obviously a set-up by leftist judges. People don't care about the truth anymore...
The case she has been sentenced for is about facts that happened before that, while she was a member of the European Parliament (until 2016).
"Nicolas Sarkozy's trial: Prosecutors request 7-year prison sentence for the former president" - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2025/03/27/nicolas-...
"Former French Prime Minister François Fillon sentenced to five years" - https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/29/europe/france-franois-fil...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:French_politicians_co...
Don't remember the right whining about how ineligibility is undemocratic with this one (Cahuzac is left leaning)
Take this post, for example, flagged almost immediately: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43544534 https://youtu.be/6DsYAoIN3l8?t=65
It tells the story of a Maryland father wrongly imprisoned in El Salvador due to an "administrative error." The U.S. government admitted fault in court, yet refuses to take corrective action. Silence follows.
Meanwhile, a post discussing Marine Le Pen...A MAGA adjacent figure remains untouched. Funny how moderation seems oddly selective when certain narratives are involved.
Seems like a reasonable policy we should adopt in the US…
People find the dream of hitting the jackpot far more appealing than creating a genuinely classless society.
No, there’s nothing noteworthy here, especially for a crime Le Pen didn’t committed herself and which every single party of France is guilty of.
Don’t choke on that kool aid!
Excuse me but what in the hell? To come in here and redefine a corruption investigation as being in that camp is not only an insult to the reader but it an insult to everyone who both cares about civil rights and government corruption at the same time.
Defensive democracy is just marketing spin on exactly the sort of civil rights violating process that gives the establishment huge advantage over any challenger and exactly the sort of crap totalitarian regimes love and leverage to great effect.
The wikipedia page that you linked lists the following examples of "defensive democracy".
>Surveillance by the security corps (especially military and police intelligence) of activists who are considered dangerous, or after entire associations outright;
>Restrictions on the freedom of movement or action over bodies suspected of endangering democracy;
>Deprival of the rights of individuals and parties from running for election
>Outlawing of organizations considered a danger to democracy;
>Cancellation of elections as a last resort ""
Does that sound like the kind of stuff that fair, well run by rule of law, stable democracies with lots of buy in from the populace do to you? Because it sure doesn't to me. It's basically a list of stuff unpopular governments use to stay in power a little longer.
To come in and lay claim to the credibility of of something that everyone can agree is good (prosecuting corruption, equality under the law) and siphon some of that off onto a subject that is highly controversial (selective violations of civil rights, nominally for a good reason) by just falsely claiming the good thing is a subset of the controversial thing is dishonest and morally reprehensible.
...Yes?
Or are you saying politicians can just barge in and say "the rules don't apply to me because I'm popular"? Because that's how you don't get stable democracies. What you get is Trump, or the Red Brigades, or the Brown Shirts running things to the ground. Because the motto of those orgs is "one man, one vote... One last time"
I read that list and it looks like instructions on how to end democracy, not preserve it
So your question seems to evade the point.
It’s like having a gun to defender yourself then the criminal takes it from you.
So are you comfortable with someone like Trump using those same tools?
In short, no, Trump should not be able to take these tools. But in actual democracies they have checks to ensure that this is not possible while in the US no such checks exist.
I asked if you would be comfortable if he did.
Either you believe it is possible to create a perfect political system which never makes a mistake, or you believe mistakes can be made thus those tools should never be available to those in power.
Which one is it?
I’m sure that encompasses all possible outcomes, so clearly it’s not false.
Also, Trump could have been stopped by the processes in place in USA, they just were not properly used. There were several cases open against him, they just failed to do what they were supposed to.
And no, Trump couldn't have been stopped because the US has very limited rules over criminal convictions preventing running for President.
This isn't Europe ya know.
If this system had been in place when Nixon did his crimes, he would've just shrugged and kept going.
You are indeed not Europe now, not even close. Well, except for Hungary and Belarus.
Americans made their bed, now let them lay in it. Ideally those tools would have been used against him, but since they weren't... now is the time to reap the results of that inaction.
I hope you misrepresent due to ignorance and not deliberately.
Nobody is saying that politicians should not be investigated. And nobody is saying that politicians should not be convicted and even put in prison.
What people are rightfully baffled about is the riddance of the passive election right - as in, inability to be elected. If a candidate was convinced and is in prison, then it's up to the voters to decide if they still trust that person and if they consider the conviction rightful and not bias.
Surely, if the conviction was pure as a tear of a newborn baby and there was no dirty persecution of the political competitors, surely voters would take that into account and there would be no need for artificial restrictions. But that requires the absence of political hunt. One needs to impose artificial restrictions only if there is fault play.
The EU is taking the tried and tested ways Putin used to destroy his opposition. First Romania, now France.
P.S. The same critique applies to the American democratic travesty of "current/former criminals are not allowed to vote".
> Usually these people are friendly to capital as well, and the opposition are the "little people"
Don't know if this is actually true, I assume capitalists generally prefer stable market-oriented politicians and not far-right kleptocrats in favor of protectionist trade wars. And plenty of wealthy people value democracy for its own sake, Kamala outraised Trump in the 2024 election for example.
Also I doubt traditional media spend plays as large a role in a nationwide contest with a lot of eyes, if I recall during Trump's 2016 primary candidacy Fox News tried to go against him but was rebuked by their own viewers (who fell in love with him on social media) and forced to bend the knee.
Cults of personalities are more dangerous than other types of brainwashing though, and the right level of protection from the state here should be other checks and balances on the office's powers.
If we don't want to use the state to protect democracy by limiting it, then we either need to limit the concentration of wealth so that no small group of people has the power to spread the lies, or we need new forms of democracy that are resistant to such things.
If people are allowed to choose only from preselected candidates, then that is no democracy at all. "You can choose any color of the Ford you want as long as it is black".
That's the same reason I despise the "minimal amount of votes/percentage threshold to be elected" shenanigans that exist in many countries (including Europeans). That's exactly how Putin started to take over Russia's democratic election system in the beginning of his reign.
System needs controllers. But who is going to control the controllers? And who is going to control the controllers of the controllers? Turtles all the way. And the only reasonable and workable system is when people have the control. Even if they sometimes/often make mistakes. It's still the best system we have.
Course, the problem with democracy is that if you elect a crook, you'll get a crime ring haha but I guess democracy also means giving folks what they ask for.
That seems strange to me as this was public (eu) money that was funneled into her own movement, i.e. bolstering her popularity in some way. So letting her run in the elections would basically mean she would get away with the fraude.
If it's not that easy, then banning her from running is even worse.
> it should be easy to make that case to the electorate
It turns out if you have enough money for endless propaganda it is easy to make any case to the electorate. And who will be making the case anyway? The state cannot because it has to be inpartial in the elections; their opponents have a clear agenda (they want to be the president) so it's easy to dismiss their case. So that leaves no one with standing.
> If it's not that easy, then banning her from running is even worse.
If the result is that a convicted criminal will not be elected into the highest office of the state, that's not a worse outcome, that's a perfect outcome.
For democracy to work properly politicians need to follow the rules.
In the case of EU are there other politicians who embezzled funds that were let off the hook?
As for the length of punishment, we would have to look in detail what each did.
Two murders may result is different length of imprisonment.
Does it though? One common thread in the comments here is whether ineligibility is or is not warranted in political embezzlement cases. If hers is justified, how is the lack of Chirac's justified? That he was not seeking to be elected?
Whether or not it's actually a politically motivated difference, it's not a stretch that people question whether it is. Because it's a very convenient sentence. And let's face it, she was very likely to make it to the second round of the presidential election, and I can totally see a number of people being extremely bothered that it was a possibility, because if it did happen, if she wouldn't have won, it would have been very close (although who knows, a miracle could happen, and the political field might be less of a mess in 2 years).
If Le Pen won, or if she would make to the second round is meaningless. The election would be tainted by having her running. That people are burthurt that their pet right wing populist became ineligible is of no substance. If anything it proves the courts are independent, and not acting to please a subset of the people.
As stated in another reply, being sentenced to ineligibility for embezzlement is only possible since 2017.
It simply wasn’t a possible sentence in 2011. Note that this is not because it was considered too harsh. Ineligibility was systematic before 2010 as anyone condemned for embezzlement was automatically removed from voting lists for five years. However this was judged unconstitutional in 2010 (because it was automatic and sentences have to be individualised, ineligibility in itself is fully constitutional).
Note also that the 2011 verdict was somewhat unusual because before 2010 when this was judged unconstitutional, Chirac condemnation would have led to him being removed from the voting list for five years and therefore de facto ineligible. Chirac was “lucky” to be sentenced during the seven years window when ineligibility wasn’t possible.
Ultimately, rules come from the people in a democracy.
If they decide they want a candidate who broke the rules, that's where it gets messy in political philosophy.
Should the democratic will of the people from years ago or decades ago override the democratic will of the people now? Of course that's the general idea of having constitutions and such, but it can only ever be a matter of degree, and there's no right answer as to how much.
Rules should be followed. If when rules are broken no punishment is applied, the rules are meaningless. Once rules become meaningless, everyone will be emboldened to break the rules, to the detriment of society as a whole.
If you want the rules changed, vote for them being changed, don't give free pass for any asshole to break them.
> Rules should be followed.
But free, democratic elections is a "rule" too -- not just a rule, but a bedrock principle.
Why should people be prevented from voting now for someone because of previous rules made by a previous electorate? Why should someone from the past be allowed to nullify my preferred vote in the present?
There's always something inherently anti-democratic about preventing someone from running for office. The question is whether it's outweighed by other democratic concerns. It's messy.
All elections follow rules set by a previous electorate unless you want to first vote on defining the rules for an election every time you have an election.
If Trump were to actually run for a 3rd term, would you argue that he should be able to because term limits were set in place by a previous electorate?
But there is definitely a serious philosophical argument that term limits are inherently undemocratic.
I personally think they're necessary, but at the same time I realize they are undemocratic. They're literally taking away the ability for an electorate to freely choose.
All I'm saying is, the tradeoffs get messy. Restricting candidates from running can be a slippery slope. Look at what's happening in Turkey, where the popular opposition candidate was just barred from running. How do you know when you've gone too far? Barring candidates can corruptly entrench power, even when following the "rules" to the letter. What then?
Bold claim. Bold claims require bold evidence. You provided none.
> Look at what's happening in Turkey, where the popular opposition candidate was just barred from running.
Are you aware of the current situation in Turkey? If that's not bold evidence, I literally don't know what is.
If France failed to punish Le Pen, they would be takinya step into creating their own French Erdogan.
Are you really so sure?
Why was she the only one barred from running from office? Why not the other eight officials also found guilty?
Yes.
> Why was she the only one barred from running from office?
Because she was judged by an independent court and found guilty of embezzlement.
> Why not the other eight officials also found guilty?
I would have to read the decision to give this answer. Many things are considered when a judge gives out a sentence. Two murders may result in different prison length depending on circumstances, for example.
I'll just leave you with this considered analysis:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/04/01/why-marine-le-p...
Particularly:
> The crimes of which Ms Le Pen has been convicted are serious, but not of the same order. France’s harsh sentence in this case limits the choice of citizens who are capable of judging for themselves who should get their vote. By creating a mechanism that politicians might be thought to have co-opted, the law encourages talk of conspiracy—especially if, like Ms Le Pen, the barred politician belongs to a party that is founded upon a suspicion of the elites.
> The danger of courts aggressively sentencing politicians is that both the law and the courts become seen as partisan. Judiciaries rely on citizens accepting verdicts with which they disagree. Elections are supposed to generate consent for the incoming government. A poll after Ms Le Pen’s conviction found just 54% of French thought she was treated like any other accused, a narrow margin of confidence in judicial independence. Among RN voters, 89% thought she was singled out for political reasons.
That vote would be tainted by her embezzlement of campaign funds. The rest of this analysis is void once the author fails to consider how badly democracy can be damaged once election regulations are not respected.
Of course, the author may jave ulterior motives, and wants to defend Le Pen in this case because he wants to see democracy in Europe weakened from within. But I sm giving the benefit of doubt here and presuming stupidity rather than malice.
You, on the other hand, are presenting Marine Le Pen as a threat to democracy, presumably because you don't like the far right. But you're just one voter. Why not trust the electorate? Voters chose Giorgia Meloni and I don't see Italian democracy falling apart.
I'm not far right at all. I'm not even right. But I worry it's dangerous and will backfire to take choice away from an electorate because of some misuse of funds (that didn't benefit herself financially) that she is already being heavily punished for at a personal level. She's being punished. Voters shouldn't be by taking away their right to choose.
This is not up to voters to decide. If Le Pen murdered someone it wouldn't be up to voters for decide if the murder mattered.
Politicians don't have a separate legal system for them that allow voters to be judges. They are subject to the same intependent judiciary.
All the rest of your response falls apart after that.
> term limits are inherently undemocratic
A society where the people are not able to participate in the electoral process is not a democratic society. True democracies represent the will of all people, regardless of whether they are part of the majority or whether they were eligible to vote in the single election which transitioned the political system from democracy to dictatorship.
The rules can be changed but again there are rules for how to do that! It's rules all the way down.
You can't have a functioning democratic system without rules.
The problems start when people start thinking that rules don't matter or aren't applied evenly.
Ironically Turkey is in this situation precisely because Erdogan removed term limits and spent decades consolidating his power. Same with China where Xi Jinping did the same. And Russia with Putin. All prime examples of functioning democracies, right?
These rules are specially to prevent people from setting themselves up as emperor for life and if they are removed that's almost always the exact thing that happens.
Democracy isn't a perfect system, as much as Americans tend to believe it is. It needs some guidelines to keep it functional. And even with them it's a compromise, not perfection.
Only when the rules are respected by everyone involved.
If we are playing football (or soccer for the barbarians across the pond), a core principle is to score goals. If in the middle of the game I punch you in the face, that principle stops mattering super fast.
> Why should people be prevented from voting now for someone because of previous rules made by a previous electorate?
Because that is how rules and regulations work. If you want them changed, change them properly, don't go breaking them because your pet right wing politician was punished for breaking them.
> There's always something inherently anti-democratic about preventing someone from running for office
I fundamentally disagree. The only thing anti-democratic is to allow someone that does not respect the democratic rules for running for office, for they will undermine democracy from within.
Surely you see the catch in this belief. If there is a group of people who can "allow" others to run for election then the system is not democratic at its core.
It is democratic at its core. Any democracy has an independent judicial system that can ensure that rules are being followed properly.
Separation of powers between executive, legislative and judiciary, does it ring a bell to you?
If the judiciary stops doing its job of banning those that would cheat elections, you wouldn't have a democracy anymore.
I enthusiastically endorse the separation of powers and firmly believe that people should follow systems, not people. Perhaps it just a global coincidence, but the recent spate of candidate disqualification (US, Romania, Turkey, France) gives the appearance of democratic decay.
Then don't assume the judiciary is biased by following up with a disclaim that you are repeating baseless conjecture. Le Pen was judged with her right to legal defense, found guity, and punished accordingly. This is democracy working as it should.
> I enthusiastically endorse the separation of powers and firmly believe that people should follow systems, not people.
Based on the content of your posts, I sincerely doubt your enthusiastic endorsement.
You are very quick to make excuses for the right wing politician that was punished for embezzlement, claimed repeatedly that her being banned from office is undemocratic, and claimed without a shred of evidence that the court that judged her is biased.
Forgive me if I think you are bullshitting me here.
> Perhaps it just a global coincidence, but the recent spate of candidate disqualification (US, Romania, Turkey, France) gives the appearance of democratic decay.
Comparing France to Turkey is pure bad faith argumentation. If you genuinely think that Turkey and France share any sort of democratic decay you are very ill informed.
If Le Pen was not punished, I would agree France was taking a step in creating its own French Erdogan.
But if the people involved are not making up crimes, but prosecuting crimes; if they are not targeting people specifically, but enforcing the law that applies to everyone; and if they are allowing for the maximum possible due process, then there really isn't much of a case for that process being anti-democratic.
i’m curious, do you think age minimums are ok? i feel like with this opinion have to throw out all restrictions on the ability to run for office to be consistent.
That's entirely the wrong way to think about government. Government isn't about rules, it's about allocation of power. You have to think about government in terms of who is entrusted with power to make which decisions. If you entrust judges and lawyers to decide "when rules are broken" by elected officials, you give them power over those officials, and over voters.
Now that's okay to a degree, but the question is: where does the buck stop? If you design a system where the buck stops with lawyers and judges, then you've effectively given those lawyers and judges power to overrule voters. It's better to design a system where the lawyers and judges demur in situations like this, to avoid a "tail wagging the dog" situation where the legal system is invoked to resolve a political dispute.
What you are describing is the judiciary in any functioning democracy. Separation of powers requires an independent judiciary system.
They have to be unelected, so they keep their independence when evaluating if the laws are being applied according to the written law.
> Now that's okay to a degree, but the question is: where does the buck stop?
With proper separation of powers and an independent justice system, like the one that judged Le Pen and found her guilty.
I would only see thorniness is the courts refused to punish Le Pen out of fear of punishing a somewhat popular politician, as this would embolden others to act in ways to break the rules, and would undermine the independence of the court, which is a core tenet of a functioning democracy.
I think you only see thorniness here because you wanted Le Pen to keep doing her thing. See? it works both ways.
The way out of your conundrum is to admit there is no "the People"; there is a collection of diverging, often incoherent trends, and no voting system is perfect (no voting system is even logical, as proven by Condorcet and Arrow[0])
[0] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/arrows-impossibility-th...
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/democracy-and-republ...
The fundamental democratic principle is the same.
And we measure the will of the people in elections, without having to worry about Arrow... it's procedural.
(2002 election, not 1995 - my bad)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_French_presidential_elect...
In English, more-or-less: > A society is democratic if it acknowledge that it is divided, which means that it contains contradictory interests, and if it creates modality to analyse and debate these contradictions so that we can reach arbitration, with each citizen having an equal share in the debate.
I don't believe that a society is democratic if a majority of the people have decided something that is harmful or unfair to a minority without properly having debated if this decision is fair or not for the minority.
Because of that, no, it's not "whatever the majority decides". In a democracy, the will to guarantee justice and fairness is more important than "the people", and if they say "there is suspicion of fraud from this candidate but let's just close our eyes because we like this person or because it is profitable for us", this is clearly a behavior where they are not trying to reach a just and fair situation.
This is what distinguish democracy from ochlocracy.
And I don't understand how people can really defend that we should ignore the justice/fairness condition: what is the point of following "the people" when these people are not trying to be just and fair? How will it be a good society?
Democracy doesn't require that, except for a narrow subset of rules relating to voting and things like that.
The system you're describing isn't even democracy--it elevates lawyers and judges above the voters. Think about it: if there was a class of people you could trust to neutrally administer and enforce "the rules" then you wouldn't need multiple branches of government, separation of powers, etc. You could just make rules for everything, and trust the neutral arbiters to enforce those rules in politically neutral ways.
Let me try:
It's not like Putin started a war, but rather some officials trusted the electorate at some level and decided that the rules the electorate chose to make via their representatives should be followed. The representatives being Putin and friends. Those officials also trust the electorate to change the rules if they want to.
There were no actual attempts at a coup btw, so the electorate is evidently happy with this.
If you want to live in the world where we "trust the electorate" you first have to figure out how to make the electorate informed. In the meantime, I would gladly accept equally applied and adjudicated laws as a way to remove corrupt individuals from the electable population. A lot of places do this already, so making it so someone can't run for a given election cycle seems like a relatively small slap on the wrist compared to barring felons from ever being allowed to vote or hold office.
The marketplace of ideas as a primary political decision method was a dumb idea.
(His party is under investigation for the same crime. The Prime Minister’s party was also investigated, got off with a simple fine)
Untrue. Seven people were condemned to jail time and made ineligible in the MoDem trial.
Mélenchon's strategy has been for a while to get voters from both the ghettos and from Le Pen's pool of supposedly unhappy but not racist voters. That's again what they're doing here: painting themselves as more respectable [0] than the far right while shitting on Macron / the current establishment.
[0] As opposed to the far right, their ranks aren't filled with people who have been convicted for antisemitism, and the sheer amount of fraud cases in there also speaks for itself...
What's wrong with the timing? Isn't the election in 2027?
Separately, here in the U.S., I take issue with the fact that ex-felons are denied the right to vote. I believe we should push for a constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to vote for every U.S. citizen—regardless of their criminal record or other issues.
Why would you want that? Didn't history teach us better?
>> Separately, here in the U.S., I take issue with the fact that ex-felons are denied the right to vote
Well, ex-felons can become Potus, so that's that.
Once you give the courts the power to disqualify candidates you open the door to massive potential for political witch hunts with the express goal of disqualifying the opposition.
Since the executive branch effectively controls the justice department, this is a pretty scary thought.
France has an additional layer of independence compared to the U.S. because of the juge d’instruction (investigating judge), who is also supposed to be independent from the executive, unlike prosecutors.
I say in principle because, judges are appointed in France and not elected. The executive as some control through appointments and career advancements but they are not supposed to use it to sanction or reward the judges.
The effectiveness of these independence mechanisms remains a subject of active debate, as evidenced by the relatively recent changes made to them.
The problem is not the power. The problem is the politicisation.
Its unreasonable to say powers should never be abusable, but it isn't hard for a political system to become politicized. That shouldn't be all it takes.
At the end of the day if someone has the ability to prevent you from using your power, they are the ones who actually have power. So who watches the watchmen?
The US tries to solve this conundrum by making the checks on power a self-reinforcing circle. "Checks and balances". But at the end of the day, the Constitution is just a piece of paper, and all it takes to abuse power once given to you is to convince yourself you have the right.
We can diffuse the power so much that not one person can abuse it. But that has the problem of making action so impossible that the power is never used and nothing gets done. Equally problematic.
That's why it's so important to elect people of high character. Most politicians fail this test.
> That's why it's so important to elect people of high character. Most politicians fail this test.
I'd say we have failed to build a system that incentivizes anyone of high character to run for office.
Courts give orders, but the coercive powers of fines and incarceration are administrative. At the federal level, and the few states I'm familiar with, these are executive branch powers.
To whatever degree the founders were deeply flawed people, they understood power quite well. They didn't create a democracy as much as they created a polyarchy. Their interest was to make ambitions compete. Ambition to counter ambition.
They were most concerned by consolidated power. Monarchy. For obvious reasons.
Your problem is with human nature - it's not going to change.
We'll never have a system where we find "good humans" who don't have the urge to win by any means necessary. So you need to devise a system that makes that as hard as possible.
I don't have a strong opinion on it wither way, but the GP's opinion seems totally reasonable to me.
Why shouldn't the public be able to elect whoever they want? If the courts can block candidates before they run, the courts can effectively circumvent checks and balances before the person could be elected.
> Didn't history teach us better?
I'm not sure what you're referring to here, help me out. What examples of history show the universal downsides when courts can't disqualify potential candidates?
Because some types of illegal behaviour of candidates can influence the vote.
This isn't about a court banning MLP because of her views or policy proposals (that would be very bad) but because she has been show to have comitted fraud by abusing EU money to pay for her own party.
Unlike in the US there are strict rules in France about how much politicians can spend on campainging and where the funds can come from that are intended to ensure a level playing field rather than favouring rich candidates.
If courts couldn't ban candidates who don't respect the rules then elections could be "bought" illegaly.
The comment I relied to was talking about judicial powers in general, and referenced the US rather than France.
My point really isn't specific to any one country though. If an electoral system is meant to be democratic, IMO people should be able to vote for whomever they want. If a candidate can get enough support to win, so be it.
That doesn't preclude us from having laws protecting our right to free and fair elections though. A candidate will absolutely influence the vote, that's the candidate's whole job. There has to be lines drawn where it goes from campaigning to impeding a democratic election, I wasn't arguing against that.
Anyway POTUS is likely the only job a convicted felon can get.
On the other hand, if only those who really deserve it lose their right to vote (i.e. a small fraction of the population), then it doesn't really matter if they can vote or not - their small numbers mean they won't make a difference. But the benefit is that disenfranchisement can no longer be used as a political weapon.
How would that be any different than banning someone from running a company after they've been found guilty of fraud or any other way of breaking the law about how to run companies?
If they've been proven unable to follow the law, they shouldn't be able to be elected.
As some extra context here, the judge mentioned that she was totally recognizing how heavy the situation was. But she mentioned a few things:
- it's been found that it was all part of a system designed from the very top of the party (so MLP) to embezzle money
- it's been noted that during the entire procedure, all the defendants showed complete denial of the facts and no will to accept that they did something bad
As such she pointed out that they was a high risk that they would do it again, and that's what tipped the scale in favor of banning them right away. I agree with that.
If people want to vote for someone, that’s their democratic right. And if they make a mistake, they’ll learn from the consequences. But the decision should ultimately rest with the voters, not the courts.
But this is a case of cheating. If a candidate cheats in an election, that should disqualify them because otherwise the election is tainted.
This is just the latest example showing how wrong your take is.
1. You win when a 1 is rolled
2. You win when a 1 or a 2 is rolled
Despite both of the situations being less than 50% the 2nd one is still more effective.
(Also your comment implies Trump's campaign doesn't have boots on the ground which obviously isn't true ...)
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_des_assistants_parleme...
That decision should lie with the voters, you say.
So which takes precedence? Prison, where they are serving a sentence? Or the democratic role?
After all, the same public, using their democratic rights, voted for a system in which that person was sentenced to prison.
So which vote is more important? The vote that says that "X is a crime, and if you are justly convicted, the sentence is Y"? Or the vote that says "If I want you to be our leader, that's more important than that previous application of justice"?
You aren’t the first person to have the thought you are expounding above.
There is no final arbitrator that is above all others.
Liberal democracies are build on the principle that no institution is beyond corruption. That's why they build systems based on separation of powers and checks and balances.
(1) Courts should be independent, because executive branch can be corrupt and law-making branch (voters and their representatives) don't always want to follow the laws they set up.
(2) Law making branch (elections, representatives) should be immune from courts and executive branch messing with them. Lawmakers have immunity from courts and executive. Courts and executive branch should not be able to limit candidates too much.
(3) Executive branch should execute laws, but not allowed to make them. Courts should keep the executive branch in check and have at least some immunity form it.
It's all balancing acts. Different countries have different balances.
> And who should decide that if not the courts?
We could trust voters to take that into the account when making decision who to vote.
It's an ontological issue, if everyone is potentially compromised, how do you know anything ? It's also leveraged by biased medias to discredit old institutions and suddenly no more counter powers..
You just made a strong case for freedom of speech and free press.
It's the pragmatic acknowledgment that human fallibility necessitated institutional safeguards against the concentration of power. Enlightenment thinkers like Montesquieu, came up with it.
Because it gives incumbents a strong incentive to try influencing the courts against their opponents.
I believe - yes, it is my opinion only - that existence of such incentives and a temptation to act upon them is, in the long run, more dangerous to democracy than allowing felons into elections.
People respond to incentives. If we know anything at all about human behavior, it is that people respond to incentives. And there is no shiny nice wall separating democracies from authoritarian states. Countries slide along the scale, and they can absolutely slide in the wrong direction.
This is super dangerous “both sides”-ism.
Only one side is trying to do what you think “those in power” do.
Nazis will argue up and down about their right to free speech, right up until the moment they are in power. And guess what happens then?
And as for France, that is why I don't trust Mélenchon any more than Le Pen, and they have 50 per cent of voters between them. Two far-somethings don't make a democracy.
The debate is effectively between classical Liberalism, and authoritarianism/patromonialism/fascism.
Forget what people called themselves: the peoples republic of North Korea certainly isn’t a republic.
Socialist Left/Capitalist Right is an outdated dichotomy that is only in service of authoritarians.
You just answer your own question!
Since politicians will cheat democracy, they will use the system to ban people running for office that threaten their power.
That's the concept of the separation of powers. Of course judges will have opinions and can never truly be objective (no such thing exists anyway), but their main job is to apply the law. And the concept of appeal and (in France) "cassation", which meana judgment can be revised up to two times, are there so that no single judge ruling can be definitive in isolation.
If politicians can use the judicial system to ban political opponents, the system is broken and powers are not separated in the right way. And I'll definitely not say that France has a perfect separation (the president concentrate a lot more than it should), but it's still there and this wasn't such a case (in the past two years, Le Pen and the RN is the group that Macron has been willingly compromising with and letting arbitrate a lot of stuff)
But judges don't determine which cases they will hear, prosecutors do.
You could have 12 people violate the law, but if the prosecutor decides not to pursue 11 of them, only the 1 will face any consequences.
US code is comprised of tens of thousands of laws. It's not hard to find one that you've violated at some point in your life.
Most of the time they aren't prosecuted. But if they decide to, a judge will have to find you guilty.
More broadly, I believe Democrats would gain much more support if they focused on a few key issues—ones that have broad consensus and appeal to independents—and pursued them with laser focus. Instead, they tend to chase after every single distraction Trump throws their way, which only plays into his strategy.
Someone who committed something heinous like felony assault, there’s still an easy argument to be made that they should be allowed to both run for office and vote.
But if someone was guilty of some kind of corruption, bribery, taking bribes, spying, insurrection, treason, organized crime, violating their oath of office, or anything else that suggests they are not going to serve with the best interests of their constituents and the world at heart, they should absolutely not be allowed to run for office, and maybe should not be allowed to vote.
It's really who you trust more: courts or the people.
1. French law recognizes that French people are not trusted to weigh in the conviction properly, and the court sentences put limits to how can and can't run.
2. On the other hand, corrupting of the courts would prevent correcting the system by voting. If the courts are corrupt all hope is lost.
Just last week a turkish court arrested the mayor of Istanbul under similar "corruption" charges. He happens to be the most popular opposition politician challenging Erdogan.
EDIT: forgot to mention that recently Romanian supreme court canceled the elections altogether because the current government did not like the guy who won the first round. And of course he is not allowed to run in the rerun of the elections. People's votes do not seem to count any longer.
Where do you get your information, Fox News?
It was because of grievous breaches of campaign financing. The kind of thing that brings the integrity of their electoral system at serious risk.
No doubt that this will only strengthen the claims that this is politically motivated, and the timing is obviously very "interesting"... So unclear how this will play out in public opinion and polls.
You have a _CURRENT_ felon serving as POTUS.
Oh, it's Trump, they said, well, yes, he has been convicted, but because a sentence has not been imposed or completed he's akshualllly not reallly a felon... yet.
All the inmates in Florida prisons whose sentences have not been completed were very surprised to learn they were still eligible to vote.
Except, no, this is just for Trump.
Le Pen's case is similar to Sarkozy takng a briefcase of cash from Gaddafi to finance hus campaign (and then waging war agsinst him) but it's more nuanced, because instead she used EU funds when Putin's funding dried up due to the need to finance his war. So basically she should probably be in the same place that Sarkozy is now or wherever the court will decide based on evidence.
The real responsible person is Marine Le Pen: Don't commit crimes and you won't have these problems.
Felons shouldn't be eligible for political positions though.
They also have been frothing hard for decades about the leniency of the courts and how utterly honest they were compared to the others ... I guess its only relevant as long as they're not concerned. Incredible.
The law has been applied fair and square. Period.
And after all that they even become "martyrs" because everyone is corrupt and against them.
Make no mistake: this is completely standard and of LePen’s own doing.
Anyone telling you otherwise is either at best completely ignorant of French jurisprudence and the factual details of the case, or, at worse, intentionally deceiving you.
The prison sentence being suspended until appeals are exhausted also seems sane to me for a nonviolent crime.
So, overall, it seems reasonable. The ban on a run isn’t infringing on fundamental rights in a way that is permanent and there’s no deprivation of liberty until appeals are exhausted.
Making ineligibility sentences immediate is a way to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen.
Take the individual parties of today out of it. You don't want the party in power in the government to have the ability to decide who is allowed to run for office. If you actually want to live in a democracy and not just autocracy with your favored party in power, you want the people to decide who runs with as little government input as possible.
A judge saying someone is not allowed to run for office is objectively, by definition, anti-democratic.
> We're seeing this exact process happen in real time in the US.
Last I checked Rosie O'Donnell is only one stupid enough to imply that the latest presidential election was not completely above board.
In a court of law in the US, a jury decides whether someone is guilty or not guilty in criminal cases.
The information the jury hears in the US in criminal cases, especially high profile ones, is extremely tightly controlled. They're not in the room when lawyers are making evidentiary arguments to include or exclude evidence. I've served on a couple juries and the most high-stakes one carried potentially decades of jail time for the defendant. We were shuffled in and out of that room dozens of times each day for lawyers to make arguments about what we could or could not hear. Several of our questions during deliberation were answered with a section of the transcript and nothing more.
Juries are wrong all the time.
The MAGA cult was complaining about it until it became obvious they did not lose the elections.
She can spend the next five years campaigning on how the establishment is trying to shut her down. These judges love own goals, no one should be barred from running for office of a country they're a citizen of. To me, it feels like overreach of un-elected judges.
The alternative is Judges letting people off just because they're politicians. That seems like an extremely poor precedent to set, those in political life should be held to higher standards.
By your logic, Trump should be allowed to run for a 3rd term right?
From the 25th Amendment:
"No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once."
Trump might not be able to "be elected to the office of the President" again, but he could run as a temporary Vice President and then the President could resign, allowing Trump to serve another term, for example.
Of course the 12th Amendment says, "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States", but the 25th Amendment doesn't say a two-term President is ineligible to the office of President, it says he can't "be elected to the office of President".
The Supreme Court recently decided that a law prohibiting false statements did not prohibit misleading statements. If the legislators had wanted to prohibit misleading statements, they would have prohibited false and misleading statements, not just false ones. Words matter to them.
And there are many other possibilities for creative types.
As far as the French eligibility rules go, would you be comfortable with a system where anyone who Trump's DOJ can get a conviction on is ineligible to run for office, with no right of appeal on that holding? That would be a really terrible incentive.
(/s just in case)
Like I mean I'm sure her core followers will be able to explain it away, but for a broader populist appeal it doesn't seem great.
The US Supreme Court and Congress decided to allow Donald Trump to run in 2024, choosing not to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment against him. As you can see today, this resulted in Donald Trump not being empowered.
[1] https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/trump-v-anderson...
I'm sure that her meaning changed in the last few hours.
Disclaimer: I don't support Le Pen. I also don't support banning her from running, but it's harder for me to understand and argue why I feel that way. I think it's a combination of:
- If people would elect a "bad" leader, disqualifying them delays the problem. They'll eventually elect another bad leader or revolt. Unless the bad candidate is only popular for a temporary reason, but that may not always be the case.
- Disqualifying someone because they broke a law is bad, because anyone can be "breaking a law"; every nation has many laws and they can be misinterpreted. Related: the situation in Turkey.
- Counterpoint: a self-interested party will disqualify whoever they want. But written laws (even guidelines) matter in the long-term because borderline party-supporters need justification to stay supportive, and people revert to laws. See: countries (like Turkey and Russia) using laws to justify banning candidates instead of "because we said so".
Keeping the rules simple (e.g. "anyone can run for office, whoever gets the most votes wins") makes it harder for an adversary to break them while retaining support. Keeping Democracy makes it more likely that an "adversary" will lose power, because such parties tend to become unpopular. If Democracy leads to a "bad" party consistently winning, why have it?
In fact, maybe it's necessary for a Democracy to have a "really bad" candidate win every once in a while, so people know what is bad. Then, the approach people should take is to ensure that the leader can't make rapid, far-reaching changes, so they can't ruin Democracy or people's lives in a single term. Just far-reaching enough for people to realize they made a mistake; then regular elections should be frequent, or there should be a quick way to get a snap election, so the bad leader is replaced.
She stole money from the EU, an act she did after being voted MP. She couldn’t have done it if she had not been elected. So, basically she was elected, stole money and she still should not be barred from the next presidential election after she allowed that ban law to be voted?
She chose the path, she should face the consequences.
Here she is advocating for life ineligibility for politicians found guilty of crimes when elected: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9h38r0
5 years is less than what she advocates for so she should be happy
French law explicitly states that a candidate for an election must not be ineligible by reason of criminal conviction or judicial decision.
Should have thought about messing with EU funds before, I suppose.
Then French law needs to change; it's simply a requirement.
Narrator: they were horribly wrong.
Jordan Bardella is going to take her place and most likely win in 2027. He is well liked by people, he is young and he doesn't have a political legacy. In some polls, they floated his name as a replacement if she was unable to run and he polled 10% + ahead of all his rivals in the first round giving him a very good chance to actually win the run off.
This is exactly how Macron won in 2017 (no political baggage, young) and despite his vows to crush the far right he never managed to do it. Even worse, the far right is far stronger now than it was 8 years ago.
The justice system gave the far right a martyr and that is something that they will use for campaigning.
Considering Bardella past debating performance, this seems highly unlikely to me. The RN always polls high when they can stay silent and represent an easy way to express opposition. Sadly, this doesn’t remain possible during the presidential election where they actually have to defend a program.
Bardella will most likely be skewered alive by any competent opponent if he is the appointed candidate and manages to pass the first round (two big if).
I disagree for many reasons.
1) He led and won the EU elections by a wide margin.
2) Debates are no longer what tips the scale in the elections. Losing a debate is no longer the disqualifier that it once was. See the EU elections where the debates were terrible and not just because of Bardella.
3) This is a new world and Bardella is very good at campaigning on social media and has a very good reach with young people. Other parties besides LFI struggle to talk to people in general.
4) The RN is pretty much leading in all social categories except for retired people who so far had stuck with Macron. That will change as France is bleeding out and needs cash and the current government is going to get it where it can, including from it's most fervent admirers, retired people.
5) Marine Le Pen being sidelined is actually a blessing in disguise. She has worked hard to change the name of the party, change it's image, change it's people, in order to make it more likeable and more modern and by all account she has succeeded.
But there was one thing that always stuck, her name, which represent the past, when her dad ran the party.
Now that she is out, the RN can embrace being "Le Pen" free and some people who did not want to vote for her on principle because of her family history could very well be inclined to support a young, fresh face with 0 political baggage/scandal.
She is the sacrificial lamb, thrown to the wolves and in public they will lament it everywhere but come election time, her name will not be on any pamphlets and the final transformation phase of the party will be completed.
6) TINA (There is no alternative) The French political landscape is frozen in time with the same people doing the same race every 5 years.
The right wing party is basically an appendage to Macron's party at this point, the Socialists are decimated, the other left wing parties will not unite behind JLM due to his controversial views.
The center is going to be split by a civil war in order to decide who will inherit Macron's party as well as his legacy but whoever wins will also inherit the label "more of the same" which sunk Kamala Harris in the US.
Zemmour is now seen as the troublemaker and stands no chance of winning so his supporters will most likely vote for Bardella in the run off.
Bardella is the new kid on the block who will run for the first time and that will generate a lot of buzz, just like when Eric Zemmour ran in 2022.
If we add the votes from all the "far right" parties: RN + Reconquete + NPA, their total is above 40% in the first round according to the latest polls, which is the highest it has ever been.
> The RN always polls high when they can stay silent and represent an easy way to express opposition.
I don't agree with the staying silent part. I think people know by now what the party represents. Less legal and illegal immigration, tougher on crime, better salaries, and so on as it has always been. That is why people vote for them. The rest is small potatoes in comparison.
> Bardella will most likely be skewered alive by any competent opponent
That remains to be seen. Macron won in 2017 just the same. He was not a politician, not a very good debater either and his political stance was murky at best. See the "Yes I am a socialist" bit on TV followed by another bit a while later "No, I am not a socialist"
Novelty can be a good thing and I think the French people are ready for a change. But I guess we will know in two years from now.
Please note that I am expressing my personal views on this issue based on what I have seen and heard from relatives living in France. I personally don't support any of the mainstream candidates so I don't really care who wins or loses.
> He led and won the EU elections by a wide margin.
Can’t be compared to the presidential. EU elections turnout is always extremely low and this is seen as a protest election in France with low impact.
Next year municipal will be the true test and the RN does poorly in polls.
> 3) This is a new world and Bardella is very good at campaigning on social media and has a very good reach with young people.
Young people don’t vote. Turnout is always extremely low. It’s a fairly useless demographic when it comes to winning the election.
> 4) The RN is pretty much leading in all social categories except for retired people
But they still lose in virtually all head-to-head and it’s a two rounds election.
> 5) Marine Le Pen being sidelined is actually a blessing in disguise.
The party is still controlled by the Le Pen through and through however. Heck Bardella is only there because he dated (is dating?) one of Le Pen’s grand daughter.
> 6) TINA (There is no alternative)
There are plenty of alternatives.
You have well liked figures of the center like Villepin and Phillipe biding their time waiting to see which one will be candidate.
The PS will probably soon have new leadership which should shake up the landscape on the left.
The right by taking a hard line approach is eroding the RN base.
Plus there will likely be three or four other far right candidates like last time.
It’s a huge mistake to think things will remain stable so far ahead of the election. See Macron was basically unknown three years before winning.
> I don't agree with the staying silent part.
I don’t see how you can disagree. RN controls nearly a third of the parliament. Do you see them acting as a vocal opposition? Clearly they are not. They have next to zero opinion on anything significant and avoided at all costs putting forward a prime minister.
What you are listing is not really being vocal. That’s selling dreams. Anyone can promise better salaries and less criminality without pushing forth anyway to achieve that. That’s the whole point.
> Can’t be compared to the presidential. EU elections turnout is always extremely low and this is seen as a protest election in France with low impact. Next year municipal will be the true test and the RN does poorly in polls.
It still shows momentum. They would have won the parliamentary elections also if the left had not put their differences aside and campaigned under the same banner however the NFP is breaking apart as we speak and so the left parties will all campaign separately.
Municipals don't mean much. The right wing party LR is extremely well implanted locally but had a colossal defeat in 2022 just like the socialists. Even Macron's party has/had trouble getting elected in local elections but that hasn't stopped him from being elected twice. So I don't think this is a good signal as to who will win in 2027.
> Young people don’t vote. Turnout is always extremely low. It’s a fairly useless demographic when it comes to winning the election.
That is true but they definitely increase the spread of the message of the RN. One thing to consider is that most people who use Facebook for example nowadays are the older generation and they vote in big numbers. The RN is also very good at creating viral content.
> But they still lose in virtually all head-to-head and it’s a two rounds election.
It depends on who they are facing but from the latest polls, it seems that they either have a tie or win/lose by less than a percent so within the margin of error really.
> The party is still controlled by the Le Pen through and through however. Heck Bardella is only there because he dated (is dating?) one of Le Pen’s grand daughter.
I don't think it matters to the people who do not like her. They see Le Pen and they don't vote for her but a fresh new face, well that could just do it.
> There are plenty of alternatives. You have well liked figures of the center like Villepin and Phillipe biding their time waiting to see which one will be candidate.
Villepin has already been in power, people like him but he has a legacy and ticks the box "been there, done that".
Same as Phillipe who was prime minister under Macron and is therefore the face of the so called Macronie in all but name. Unless he figuratively "kills" Macron before the election, how is he going to convince people that he would do things differently?
> The PS will probably soon have new leadership which should shake up the landscape on the left.
The PS is stuck between a rock and a hard place, they can't go further left because the more right wing members will go to Macron's party and they cant go further right because they will lose support of the left wing members of their party.
They are frozen in place. No wiggle room here.
> The right by taking a hard line approach is eroding the RN base.
The right is taking a pretended hard line. So far nothing has come out of it. It's Sarkozy 2.0 which means nothing will happen. Since the right wing parties started moving right in 2007 in order to kill the RN, the RN has not only grown stronger, it now dwarfs the old right wing party.
> Plus there will likely be three or four other far right candidates like last time.
Yes, for sure, most likely Zemmour, NDA, Asselinau and Bardella. But it doesn't matter because the people who vote for parties other than the RN will most likely vote for them in the run off.
> It’s a huge mistake to think things will remain stable so far ahead of the election. See Macron was basically unknown three years before winning.
I don't think that things will remain stable but I also don't see a new Macron emerging anytime soon. Macron came at a time where people wanted change and were tired of the right/left switch happening every 5 years. He was a fresh new face and without political baggage. That ship has unfortunately sailed but what he has done is weakened the old parties and basically created a boulevard for the far-right.
It was hard for Macron to form his center coalition when the country was not as divided as it is now. Today, it is basically an impossible task to recreate this sort of environment.
But in any case, we will see. personally my hunch is that Bardella will squeak by in the run off by less than a percent but who knows really? We have crossed the rubicon and there is no turning back.
Looking on WP, there's nothing... [1] Barely at article. Supposedly the European Anti-Fraud Office opened an investigation in Jan 2014. Never saw a mention in any of the elections. Figure Macron would have jumped on that.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Front_assistants_affa...
In 2017, the European Parliament demanded repayment from Le Pen of almost €340,000. Also, seems like it would been jumped on. [2] "Parliament's financial services deducted tens of thousands of euros from her (Le Pen's) MEP allowance before she left Brussels in 2017. Threatened with an enforceable recovery order, Le Pen eventually repaid €330,000 in July 2023." [2]
[2] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2024/09/30/w...
Then the Le Monde article gets to actual serious issues: "a preliminary investigation was opened in France in March 2015 for breach of trust." 'A judicial investigation was opened in December 2016 on charges of "breach of trust," "concealment of breach of trust," "organized gang fraud," "forgery and use of forgeries" and "undeclared labor."' "In December 2023, at the end of a nine-year investigation, the investigating judges called for the FN and 27 of its senior members and employees to be tried." [2] Except the Le Monde article is also just a Sept. 2024 article.
Followed the French elections at least a little bit over the last half decade or so, and ... nothing. Read Le Monde at least a bit. Read France24 a bit. Not even a mention of Le Pen being the subject of a nine (9?) year investigation and repaying 300,000 already to the EU Parliament. She was under investigation for "organized gang fraud" during the last election? Seems like it came out of nowhere from the perspective of somebody in the US.
Did this actually make the news regularly in France or the EU? Not much of a supporter or anything, 1000's of miles away, yet all the articles are so recent, and the coverage so nothing, makes me want my tinfoil hat for computer churn articles.
You can look at the Wikipedia article references which link to a lot of different French newspapers with large readership. A few choices: 2015 - https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2015/03/12/le-f... 2017 - https://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/index2.php?url=https%3A%2F... 2019 - https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2019/06/14/affaire-...
Ah yes, the famous leftist Macron.
We live in weird times. When I grew up, it was a civic duty and social expectation to stamp out fascism and punch Nazis. Now, people downvote and flag when their ills and rightful punishments are reported.
It was strange in the early 2010s when libertarianism (antithetical to fascism, except perhaps anarchocaptialism) seemed to embrace fascism at conferences. For lack of a quick source (it's been over a decade since I saw this happening), here is a medium writeup: https://thomas-perrett97.medium.com/from-hayek-to-hitler-an-...
Marine Le Pen is a far-right politician, the Godwin point is close, and such subjects tend to get flagged on sight before it degenerates. Politics in general tends to get this treatment.
But this time, for such a hot topic, the discussion is, I think, better than expected. With interesting viewpoints independent from her political orientation. I guess that's how this topic was saved.
This will help her in the long run too.
And even more precisely, that the judges expressed this political motivation explicitly through the use of MLP running in the presidential election as presenting a risk to public peace.
I'm not claiming it is really in the deliberations as I'm yet to read those.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Sarkozy_corruption_t...
The left is in the same bath:
https://www.france24.com/en/20170718-france-far-left-leader-...
Since this case is making jurisprudence, the likeliness of them being convicted just become even higher.
"The preliminary investigation - already targeting members of France's centrist MoDem party, conservative party The Republicans and the Socialist Party - was opened after a member of Marine Le Pen's far-right National Front asked the Paris prosecutor to look into the issue."
I glad all such allegations will be investigated.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/19/christine-laga...
Lagarde's case was about 400 million Euro. Le Pen is convicted of embezzling 474.000 Euro.
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
To quote the linked article: “The verdict came as a surprise as even the public prosecutor had admitted the evidence against Lagarde was “weak” during a five-day trial last week.”
This has absolutely nothing in common with what’s happening to Marine Lepen. Dozens of emails and messages prove that she presided over a setup designed to embezzle millions for the EU while being fully aware this was illegal.
At the time, the decision was controversial because it was too "nice" with the former minister. I'm pretty sure you can find an archive of the FN/RN spokepersons of the time criticizing the "Cour de Justice de la République."
So, instead, let "normal judges" make decisions about all citizens, voters and elected alike ?
Suddenly that does not sound that appealing.
She will run again. She will keep her deputy job. Her "jail" will be much more confortable than Navalny's. She'll have other decades to run in other élections.
Her party will keep winning some, provided gas prices and taxes and rents still go up. I don't see a politician trying anything against that. She'll be fine.
The decision was controversial because the elements presented as proof were weak.
Let’s not rewrite history and remember that Lagarde was guilty of pushing for arbitration where a panel awarded the sum and didn’t herself decide the pay out.
> Interestingly, the Lagarde case was not ruled by "regular" judges, but by a special court "of politicians, by politicians, for politicians"
This is not what the CJR is. It’s a special court which is only competent to judge actions committed by members of the government as part of their function. It mixes elected members of the parliament and senate (six each) and two judges.
It’s important to realise that before the CJR was created, there was only members of parliament in its predecessor the Haute Court and it was never called granting de facto immunity to ministers.
Sure. However, it has been criticized for being too "soft" on politicians since the late 90s.[1]
https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2016/12/23/pour...
But crime is crime and justice should always be applied equally.
Allowing a populist criminal to run for office is not great for democracy.
At best, that trait is highly localized.
And compared to (say) "1900's standard" levels of corruption in Democrat-controlled big American cities - Le Pen's crimes were nickle-and-dime stuff.
https://borgenproject.org/10-facts-about-corruption-in-greec...
(BTW, it ain't been 100 years. Mayor Daly Sr. ran Chicago into the 1970's. Mayor Young ran Detroit into the 1990's. Etc.)
Not saying the left is particularly corrupt, there are examples on all sides.
Why would you say so? Are there any studies on proportional crime distribution among politicians worldwide?
It is a brave thing to do, to hold popular people accountable for their actions (especially things like leaking secrets to geopolitical adversaries resulting in the deaths of intelligence personnel, or, other things like what Le Pen is guilty of), but it is necessary. Once you let it go, your country becomes ruled by authoritarians.
Factually you can't call her or her party "fascist", either. This is really one of those terms that is over-used to an extent that is not useful at all.
I therefore reject your claim this is improper labeling.
Better than not doing anything and allowing them to become actual leaders.
The roadmap ends with a strong man dictator that has removed any and all hurdles towards absolute power so that the agenda can be implemented without compromise.
Any roadblock towards this is called "anti-democratic" which is the ultimate irony as those preaching it fully support the end of democracy.
The US is now an inch away from being a dictatorship as the last line of defense, judges, are under severe attack. They're targeted to be impeached, called "radical left" and Musk is throwing money at flipping votes.
This process is happening in several countries and it's baffling how many people eat it up, including in these comments.
I suppose it is true that democracy is fragile and that with a few nudges people vote to dismantle it themselves.
All of the people who remember the last round of fascism in the 1920s to 1940s are dying off, only those of us who never experienced it are left.
If someone on "my side" was found guilty of embezzlement or fraud -- through due process in a court of law with sufficient evidence that there was no path of appeal -- then I have ZERO problems denouncing the individual and would celebrate their punishment.
This is the fundamental problem with the left in the US: the standards for ethics, principles, judgement, and character are simply higher and the left will more readily fault candidates for even small lapses while the right has no such qualms.
1. She is a woman. Her party is very conservative and a male figure would project more strength and attract voters that she might deter to parties further on the right (yes there are a few)
2. She is been here a long time, so she doesn’t exactly qualify as anti-establishment.
3. It makes the party looked harassed, and it is easy for them to state that “everyone is cheating, but they’re the only one paying for it”. Further cementing the image of the party as one of resistance.
4. She’s not good at debates. She gets destroyed every time.
I have been thinking for a long time that she’s the main reason why the far right doesn’t win in France. People would vote a Trumpian president for sure.
From what I've been able to discern, among countries that have had an elected female head of state, those women often - if not typically - represent the right wing of the local politics. The idea that conservative parties would disdain a female leader as "weak" strikes me as a strawman created by their political opponents. (However, female conservative candidates for leadership do seem uninterested in treating their gender as a reason to vote for them.)
> She is been here a long time, so she doesn’t exactly qualify as anti-establishment.
This fundamentally misunderstands the meaning of the term.
She was caught improperly funneling EU funds to her own party (members), which would give her party an unfair advantage in any current political race.
For example, you can be jailed before your trial ; you can have your driving license overturned if you kill someone ; and, it turns out, you can get banned from running into élections if you're found guilty of embezzlement.
Fortunately for her, the next elections are in 2 years ; I would not be surprised is she get an appeal, a reduced ineligibility sentence to allow her to run in the next legislative election. And she might be happy with that - two round presidential elections are hard for her party, and, more importantly : winning an election is a _terrible_ situation in France.