First, they came for Marine

Or how the court ruling in France against Marine Le Pen sounds familiar to Romanians

On 31 March 2025, a shockwave hit France: Marine Le Pen, alongside 20 other National Front party members, were found guilty of embezzling public funds, and sentenced to years of prison and barred from running into elections.

What Le Pen and her allies are accused of – and found guilty of – is to have used 4 million euros of public funds between 2004 and 2016 to hire parliamentary assistants for their MEPs, but these assistants were actually working for the party, not for the MEPs.

Le Pen herself received 4 years of imprisonment (2 years suspended, and 2 years home imprisonment), and is barred from running in any election for 5 years from now with immediate effect.

This immediate effect is somewhat unprecedented, and it is what Marine Le Pen considers anti-democratic, because it means that even if she appeals the decision — which could take more than 2 years — she would still not be able to run in the 2027 presidential elections, because the ineligibility clause cannot be suspended during the appeal process.

She was invited to the news programme on TF1 the same night, where she declared that today was “a fateful day for democracy” and for the rule of law, and that she sees this as a big injustice, and that it should be up to the people, not a judge, to decide who should run in the elections.

Beyond the speculations about Le Pen’s successor (most likely Jordan Bardella, whom Le Pen described as “a great asset” that she hopes won’t have to use before its time), the response from the political class has varied widely. Her current party, National Rally (formerly National Front), has evidently condemned the decision, but so did Jean-Luc Mélenchon, her left-wing rival, who also said this was profoundly antidemocratic and that it was up to the voters to decide this.

On the other hand, Macron’s centrist camp and the social-democrat Socialist Party members, consider that this is proof that the rule of law functions correctly in France, and that the decision should be respected. Other left-wing politicians, such as François Ruffin, consider that Marine Le Pen is now getting a taste of her own medicine, since she has been advocating for years now to establish lifetime ineligibility clauses in the law for politicians found guilty of any offence. Presidents Trump, Putin, and Orban have taken Le Pen’s side, with Dmitri Medvedev comparing Le Pen’s case with Romania’s Călin Georgescu’s case.

Two sides of the same coin?

But from a Romanian perspective, one cannot stop but notice the similarities (and differences) with the case of Diana Șoșoacă, a far-right politician who was barred from the presidential elections in 2024 by the Constitutional Court. Moreover, the Court also confirmed the Central Electoral Bureau (CEB) rejection of far-right candidate Călin Georgescu’s candidacy to the same elections in 2025.

All three candidates are from the far-right, with national sovereignty as their mantra. Could this be a mere coincidence? Or is there something more here? In other words, is this a way that some European countries have found to “fight against fascism” and prevent far-right politicians from reaching power? Marine Le Pen clearly stated in her interview that she views the judge’s decision as political, i.e. eliminating her from the race to the Elysée.

It is certain that the French judge’s decision and the Romanian institutions’ decisions were made independently; there is no doubt about that. But let us assume, for argument’s sake, that some countries (and Romania and France share similarities in their governing models, as well as their incumbent presidents being centrists), have found this back door solution to prevent far-right politicians from reaching power, unlike Giorgia Meloni in Italy for example.

Is this really the best way to fight against the surge of far-right ideas in Europe? It definitely is not.

Not only does this undermine democracy by creating a precedent that could jeopardise the candidacies of more radical, left-wing, anti-establishment candidates in the future, who could be removed from the race with the sound of a gavel. But it can also contribute to increasing support for the far right by showing their voters and the undecided that there is no real democracy, that the game is rigged – so their anti-establishment candidate was correct.

Far right candidates can now portray themselves as victims of the system, thereby creating a sense of identification and solidarity from part of their voters and some undecided ones. Among these, there will be also real victims of the system, like jobless blue collar workers in deindustrialized areas or disenfranchised young men. This only contributes to solidifying the choice these people have made to vote for the party that Marine Le Pen or Diana Șoșoacă come from. Or to the closest alternative far-right candidate (Éric Zemmour in France or George Simion in Romania).

So… Should we tolerate the intolerant?

The far right being what it is – an ideology rooted in exclusion, intolerance and domination – it is a legitimate question to ask oneself. Of course we should not allow for the participation in a democratic election of antidemocratic candidates. That’s what the cordon sanitaire or the front républicain (sanitary cordon or republican front, i.e. all anti-fascist parties rallying together) was for, back in the days. But now it’s too late for this. The floodgates are open, and they’ve been so since 1974 in France when Jean-Marie Le Pen ran in the presidential elections for the first time.

Far right discourse is everywhere now, even among the ranks of the centrists.

For instance, French PM François Bayrou used the far right rhetoric about immigration flooding France. Or the Romanian PM Marcel Ciolacu took a conservative tone directly borrowed from Trump or Georgescu when he declared that the new Romanian ID cards will contain information about the sex of a person, not that of gender, and that there are only two possible sexes – male and female.

Ultimately, it is a vain crusade to bar some far right candidates from running if centrist politicians take over their speeches and spread fascist ideas in society. What we need is to shift the Overton window towards vales of tolerance, equity, equality, respect, etc.

There is a crucial need, now more than ever, for an independent press that provides its readers and listeners with evidence of the scam that is the far right. We need progressive politicians to stand up to intolerant messages, and not fall into the trap of using far right rhetoric in order to “steal” voters from Le Pen or Georgescu. We need a straightforward and strong progressive rhetoric in the face of the brown tsunami that awaits Europe.

Cover photo: Marine Le Pen as MEP (photo by Claude Truong-Ngoc)

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