Can ‘witch hunt’ talk of Le Pen work in France?

ROGER COHEN

Since a Paris court barred her from standing for public office, Marine Le Pen has denounced a “witch hunt,” accused “the system” of deploying “a nuclear bomb” against her, evoked “judicial tyranny,” and suggested her followers are treated as “subhuman.”

In short, the French far-right leader, having spent the past 15 years trying to shed the extreme image and views of her party and make it more palatable to the political mainstream, has paused her makeover. She has embraced a Trump-like fury against “the system,” now used as a byword for the alleged plotting of the deep state and political judges against her.

Nowhere has Le Pen addressed in any detail the charges emanating from a nine-year investigation that found she orchestrated an illegal scheme to divert public money meant for use at the European Parliament to her National Rally party as it stood on the brink of financial collapse. In delivering a guilty verdict and sentence on March 31, the judges emphasized that no politician stands above the law.

Le Pen’s approach may be risky. For now, it is unclear whether the energizing ire of President Donald Trump and his ardent support will benefit Le Pen and the other anti-immigrant far-right leaders in Europe — what President Emmanuel Macron of France, a centrist, has called “the Reactionary International.”

Might Trump’s embrace undermine them, given the on-and-off trade war with Europe, the erratic unpredictability and the draconian government-slashing steps of the president’s first weeks in office? Europe, after all, is the land of generous social safety nets, not of libertarian state dismantlement.

“With her back to the wall, Le Pen has reacted like a wounded beast from Trump world,” said Raphaël Llorca, a center-left author and political analyst. “But her core electorate is dismayed by the stripping of public services, Musk and Tesla. It is much closer to Trump 1.0 and Bannon than Trump 2.0.”

Le Pen has gone on the attack while abjuring any “brutality” by her followers. Angry mobs are not what she wants in the streets. Though leading a party with a racist past, she has even clothed herself in “the peaceful methods of Martin Luther King Jr. for civil rights.” Still, the National Rally, affronted, has turned from the soft, ubiquitous imagery of Le Pen with her beloved pet cats to the claws of confrontation.

“We do not believe that three judges in an office can confiscate an election from millions of French people,” Laurent Jacobelli, a National Rally member of the French parliament, said in an interview. “Ms. Le Pen is innocent and our candidate.”

In opinion polls for the 2027 presidential elections, Le Pen has led comfortably, though not by enough to avoid a runoff. It appears that about half the country believes she should be allowed to run, despite her conviction on embezzlement charges. She has appealed; it is conceivable that a more lenient sentence from the appeals court next year would allow her to compete.

“We have no Plan B, only Plan A, Le Pen for president,” Philippe Olivier, her brother-in-law and close adviser, and a National Rally lawmaker in the European Parliament, said in an interview. “We are not Trumpist, we are not out for revenge, but we believe he’s a positive influence. He’s burying globalization, and we favor that, and we believe he will force Europe not to sink in uncontrolled immigration.”

European hard-right parties, some with fascist antecedents, hope to capitalize on Trump’s unrelenting presence and emulate his victory. But it remains to be seen whether they will benefit from a “Trump bump,” and if so, how long it would last.

Once drawn to Trump, Le Pen had been cautious about him more recently, even as her angry attacks on the legal system have aligned her with him. Once drawn to President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Le Pen has publicly pulled away from him in the light of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Now her official line is “equidistance” from Russia and the United States for a sovereign France, without much explanation of what that might entail.

In France, dismay at Trump’s policies is widespread and the national mood is uneasy.

“It seems Americans who voted for Trump are getting more than they bargained for,” said James Lieber, a Paris-based American consultant. “French people inclined to vote for Le Pen are certainly wondering about that. They’re asking what might get shut down, who might get thrown out.”