In the puppet comedy film Team America, the counter-terrorist protagonists defeat a group of Islamic terrorists in Paris, accidentally destroying the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Louvre in the process. A Paris judge has now done something strikingly similar.
In her attempt to uphold the rule of law and democracy, Parisienne court president Bénédicte de Perthuis ruled that Marine Le Pen—no less than the frontrunner in the presidential elections—should spend four years in prison, with two years suspended, effectively barring her from the next election.
Since Le Pen was widely expected to win, as French polls—typically reliable—predicted, the judge has, in effect, chosen to dismantle democracy in order to “protect” it from the will of the people.
Stripping candidacy rights is rare because it is a Pandora’s box. Constitutions set pretty high bars for disqualification because it is a fundamental right tied to political expression and participation. Apply it too easily, and it becomes a weapon for silencing opposition. Yet this appears to be becoming the norm in Europe.
After the shenanigans in Romania, where frontrunner Georgescu was also kicked out of the elections by a court, and Moldova, where the “pro-democracy” camp won thanks to a last-minute influx of expats from the West and ballots from Russia weren’t allowed, or Germany, where courts and the secret service go after the Alternative for Germany, France is now one of many.
“More and more European capitals are going down the path of trampling democratic norms” Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov sardonically noted in a reaction to the French coup d’etat de justice.
The ruling found Le Pen at the centre of an embezzlement scheme, allegedly diverting European taxpayer money to her party and employees.
From my vantage point, it is difficult to judge the validity of these claims, and I am willing to accept the court’s findings. However, this decision was not made in a vacuum.
First, the judge in Paris explicitly stated in her ruling that the sentence would take effect immediately, actively preventing Le Pen from participating in the presidential elections and bypassing any appeal mechanisms. This was a deliberate and conscious political decision.
Adding to this is that, despite the limited electoral weight of the Socialist Party in France, many bodies of power, including the judiciary, are heavily dominated by Socialist judges, including the Constitutional Council and the Council of State.
Second, there are legal precedents and a broader European context that cast doubt on the ruling—doubts that, evidently, many people share.
The European Court of Justice has announced a November 15 start date for the New York Times’ Pfizergate legal case against the European Commission. https://t.co/VRxxNF4FTt
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) October 8, 2024
I will compare it with similar cases, because as Herodotus around 2,500 years ago already realised: “In a democracy, there is, first, that most splendid of virtues, equality before the law.”
Take Christine Lagarde, for example, former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and current President of the European Central Bank. She was in the wrong in a €403 million arbitration deal in favour of businessman Bernard Tapie, connected to the Socialists, when she was the finance minister in 2007.
In 2016, the court found Lagarde guilty of negligence but declined to impose either a fine or a custodial penalty, despite the amount involved in her case being literally almost 1,000 times higher than the €474,000 case of Marine Le Pen.
Or just last February, Francois Bayrou, a Macron ally, who did something eerily close to Le Pen some would say, was cleared of embezzlement charges.
“There is no evidence that Mr Bayrou was aware of the non-performance of the contracts of parliamentary assistants”, the president of the court said.
“It is very likely” that some incidents occurred with “the authorisation of Mr Bayrou”, he said, but magnanimously added that “there is no evidence of this authorisation”, before acquitting him “with the benefit of the doubt”.
Now, in defence of Bayrou, it appears anyone could make a mistake with European Parliament funds to pay their assistants. Because between 2019 and 2022, a whopping 140 MEPs did just that.
Of that group, 108 paid back over €2 million to the institution, while 31 MEPs still had to return €1.44 million.
This is not a new phenomenon, but decades-old. It is a feature of the European system, not a bug, many insiders say.
It might reflect a somewhat misguided and puritanical demand from European institutions, attempting to separate the political work of MEPs in Europe from that for parties or in their home countries. Anyone with experience in politics knows that it is nearly impossible clearly to separate these roles. For some, it is even difficult to draw a line between professional duties and personal life, as many politicians would attest—being in politics is often a way of life.
In the end, eurocrats created an opaque system with ample room for interpretation and ambiguity—yet any first-year law student could tell you that clarity and certainty are fundamental principles of justice and the legitimacy of the law.
We see the same pattern in authoritarian regimes and dictatorships, where activities like gambling and prostitution are officially illegal yet openly tolerated—until someone falls out of favour with those in power. Then, the system suddenly snaps into action, and the rule of law becomes a convenient weapon.
Pesky politicians, journalists, or activists suddenly find themselves caught in a bear trap, at the mercy of the forest rangers who overnight strictly adhere to the rules from the capital. Friendly journalists do the rest. The people get fed a narrative and careers are terminated.
All of this appears to be increasingly happening in the West, where the political consensus that was in vogue since the Second World War is melting away, with profound disagreements within society on how to deal with virtually every political issue.
Partially, this explains the judicialisation of our system, where more and more societal issues are addressed through legal procedures rather than political debate or practical solutions, leading to judges and courts wielding excessive influence, often at the expense of democratic decision-making and common sense.
Under liberal ideology, complex issues are reduced to legal technicalities, while judges inadvertently take on a political role. Courts have played a significant part in shaping immigration policies and expanding so-called political rights, such as the recognition of same-sex marriage or other contentious social issues, often without any popular support but discerned in legal texts and liberal principles to which they adhere.
Today, the establishment apparently believes that using lawfare to suppress political rights and basic freedoms is the way to go. We have seen it being used against Bolsonaro, Trump, Georgescu, Salvini, Orbán, Kaczyński, and now Marine Le Pen.
If they believe their political opponents will passively accept this while Europe continues its downward trajectory under their degrowth leadership, they may be in for a shock—and a heavy dose of retaliation.
