Follow us on social

Marine Le Pen

What happens to EU's anti-war bloc without Marine Le Pen?

Questions swirl around the timing of her conviction and five-year ban from running for office

Analysis | Europe

A political bombshell in France: the long-time leader of the right-wing National Rally party (Rassemblement National) Marine Le Pen has been banned from running for political office for the next five years after a court in Paris found her guilty of embezzling the equivalent of $4 million in EU funds to pay National Rally staffers not working for the European Parliament.

She was also handed a suspended four-year prison term and ordered to pay a €100,000 fine. It remains to be seen whether the court decision means a political death sentence for her (it can be overturned if she wins an appeal), but it is certainly a devastating blow and a major shake-up of French politics.

It matters because the latest polls showed Marine Le Pen leading in the presidential race for 2027, projecting 34-37% of the votes in the first round. That would secure her a place in the run-off, where her chances would depend on the ability of all the other parties to coalesce around her would-be opponent.

At first glance, Le Pen’s disqualification could weaken the anti-war voices in France and the EU by reducing their cohesion and visibility. Her party is a founding member of the Patriots for Europe (PfE), the third largest political group in the European Parliament, where it sits with influential like-minded parties like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz, and Italian Deputy Prime Minster Matteo Salvini’s Lega. All of them have been vocal critics of the EU’s unconditional support for Ukraine, anti-Russia sanctions, and the dogmatic refusal to engage in direct diplomacy with Moscow to end the war.

To highlight the opposition to the current militarization drive in Europe, the Patriots voted against the European Parliament resolution in early March that endorsed Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen’s equivalent of $900 billion “rearm” plan. Critics dismissed that plan as unrealistic given the fiscal dire straits in which the continent finds itself and the lack of unified threat assessment throughout Europe — if you are in Portugal, for example, your perception of the Russian threat would be vastly different from Poland’s.

Opposition to the “rearm plan” was transpartisan as the Patriots were joined by the anti-war Left faction, and some dissidents from the center-left social-democratic group, such as members of the Italian Democratic Party. On the level of the member states, national interest still trumps ideological cohesion: the conservative Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — ideologically close to Orban and Le Pen — and the Socialist Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez both reject the “rearm” concept (even though the poorly-led Socialists in the European Parliament incomprehensibly voted to back Von der Leyen’s plan).

Le Pen’s experience and networks in Europe made her a key player in ensuring the cohesiveness of these like-minded forces. Back in France, she has consistently criticized Macron’s hyper-activism on Ukraine and dismissed his idea of sending French peacekeepers to Ukraine as “sheer madness” — cognizant of the fact that, absent a Russian agreement to such a deployment (which will not be forthcoming), these forces would become targets for the Russian army.

She also firmly opposed Macron’s ideas of diluting national sovereignty on defense matters, such as his loose talk of extending the French nuclear umbrella to the rest of Europe.

Of course, this has prompted vivid speculation over the political motivations behind the French court’s decision to ban Le Pen from running. While her allies on the right predictably stand by her, leftist Yanis Varoufakis, an unlikely ally, chastised the “mind-boggling hypocrisy” of the liberal media in denouncing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s imprisonment of his main opponent, Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, while rejoicing at the French courts “doing the same.”

Some also tried to draw parallels with Romania, where the winner of the first round of the presidential elections Calin Georgescu had his victory annulled, and himself banned from a re-run on apparently flimsy grounds. Like Le Pen, Georgescu ran as a torchbearer of anti-establishment sentiment, and similarly opposed a further war in Ukraine.

Yet one should not rush to hasty conclusions. The legal case against Le Pen appears to be robust. There is no evidence that the ruling of the court was politically motivated —France has a history of disqualifying misconducting politicians. In 2017, the mainstream conservative candidate Francois Fillon was disqualified for money diversion on a much smaller scale than Le Pen.

What raises questions in Le Pen’s case is not so much the veracity of the allegations against her as the immediate enforcement of the five-year ban, even before any appeal could be resolved. Crucially, that period covers the next presidential elections in 2027. That urgency has led critics to accuse the judges of violating the people’s right to freely choose their representatives, particularly given Le Pen’s popularity. However, it seems indisputable that the judges enjoyed the discretion to do so.

Short term, the news could be a boon for Macron and his liberal allies in France and the EU. For one thing, it may be giving some breathing space to the embattled centrist government led by Macron’s pick, Francois Bayrou. National Rally and the left have enough combined clout in the French parliament to oust the government, which they already did with Bayrou’s predecessor, another centrist. Yet doing so again, while mathematically feasible, could tempt Macron to call yet another parliamentary election, from which his most formidable foe would be excluded.

Longer term impact would depend on more factors. Would Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s 29-year-old protégé and presumed presidential candidate (in case her appeal fails) prove to be an effective leader? Currently he is the head of the Patriots for Europe in the European Parliament, which gives him visibility and a network with the like-minded parties in Europe.

His youth and inexperience could be a challenge for keeping the anti-war faction together. However, the Patriots network has other experienced representatives, such as Orban and Salvini, to lean on in this regard.

Ultimately, the appeal and the resilience of the anti-war, pro-diplomacy voices in Europe does not depend solely on personalities, but on broader trends, such as war fatigue, changes in U.S. foreign policy under President Donald Trump, the battleground situation in Ukraine, social and economic pressures stemming from the militarization drive, and the growing perception that the European publics were not really engaged by the elites in a proper democratic debate on the nature of threats facing Europe.

These currents exist, and they will find their champions, regardless of Marine Le Pen’s personal fate.


Top photo credit: Marine Le Pen (Claude Truong-Ngoc / Wikimedia Commons)
Analysis | Europe
Trump Joint Base Andrews
To photo credit: U.S. President Donald Trump walks with Col. Paul R. Pawluk, Vice Commander for the 89th Airlift Wing, before boarding Marine One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., June 21, 2025. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno

Trump: We 'obliterated' Iran's nuclear program, and now, 'peace'

Middle East

President Donald Trump told the American people tonight in a brief address to the nation that Iran's nuclear program has been ""completely totally obliterated" after U.S. airstrikes on Iran overnight into Sunday morning, Tehran time.

He congratulated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who launched Israel's strikes against Iran on June 13 and has been asking for U.S. assistance ever since. "We have worked as a team like no team has worked together before."

keep readingShow less
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo), Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.)  Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)
Top Image Credit: Top photo credit: Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo) (Gage Skidmore/Flickr); Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.)(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect); Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)(Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons)

The Capitol Hill Republicans against US war with Iran

Washington Politics

Even as polling indicates that a majority of Trump voters don't want to go to war with Iran on behalf of Israel, it’s been difficult to change GOP minds on Capitol Hill.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t strong conservative voices trying to do just that.

keep readingShow less
Nato-scaled
Official Opening Ceremony for NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Summit 2018 in Brussels, Belgium. (Shutterstock/ Gints Ivuskans)
Official Opening Ceremony for NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Summit 2018 in Brussels, Belgium. (Shutterstock/ Gints Ivuskans)

The 17 Ukraine war peace terms the US must put before NATO

Europe

In the run up to the NATO Summit at The Hague next week, June 24-25, President Donald Trump and his administration should present a clear U.S. plan for peace in Ukraine to the European and Ukrainian governments — one that goes well beyond just a ceasefire.

While it is understandable that Trump would like to walk away from the Ukraine peace process, given President Vladimir Putin’s intransigence and now the new war in the Middle East, he and his team need to state clearly the parameters of a deal that they think will bring a lasting peace. Walking away from the effort to end the war prematurely leaves Washington in continued danger of being drawn into a new crisis as long as the U.S. continues to supply Ukraine with weapons and intelligence.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.