Update (0845ET): Messages of support poured in for Le Pen shortly after her conviction, with the Kremlin and Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orban among the first to weigh in.
As a reminder, Le Pen led in the polls…
“Her conviction will strengthen her aura in French society: that’s what we can learn from Trump-style American politics,” said Christophe Marion, a lawmaker from Macron’s party.
The presidential elections in Romania and the Le Pen verdict show that “democratic norms are being trampled upon,” in Europe, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
“Je suis Marine,” Orban tweeted following the ruling.
For Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, the verdict was “tough”. “I trust she will win the appeal and become President of France,” he wrote on X.
Italy’s deputy prime minister and leader of the League party Matteo Salvini called the ruling a “declaration of war by Brussels.”
But there was also unease within the political mainstream in France.
“It is not healthy that in a democracy, an elected official is prohibited from standing in an election and I believe that political debates should be decided at the ballot box,” said the leader of MPs in parliament of the right-wing Republicans, Laurent Wauquiez.
Even the leader of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) Jean-Luc Melenchon appeared ill at ease. “The decision to remove an elected official should be up to the people,” he said.
RN president Jordan Bardella denounced the sentence on his X account, calling it “unjust” and amounting to an execution of French democracy.
Mike Benz posted on X, summing things up succinctly:
“They are fucking with something no democratic system should ever fuck with. If people perceive — rightly — that democracy is a farce, & anyone who runs against the order will be arrested, they’ll not only want to tear it down, they’ll seek an honest autocracy over false democracy.”
Observers have drawn parallels with US President Donald Trump, who won a second term with a clutch of criminal cases hanging over him and, like Le Pen, has made trenchant opposition to immigration a cornerstone of his program.