Macron should be a clever statesman and pardon Le Pen

Marine Le Pen’s conviction for embezzlement, coupled with the court’s imposition of a five-year ban on running for public office, matters well outside of France. President Donald Trump has taken note of this, posting “FREE MARINE LE PEN” on social media. 

French President Emmanuel Macron thus has yet another source of potential disagreement with the American President, as if the controversies over US tariffs and the Trump Administration’s approach toward NATO and the Ukraine-Russia war were not enough. That is something he does not want even as he surely revels privately in the potential demise of his dogged, and dangerous, foe.

Le Pen is appealing the conviction. The conviction might be overturned on appeal, or the sentence might be altered. Either could free Le Pen to run for President a fourth time and end the crisis.

But if the conviction and sentenced are upheld on appeal, Macron should burnish his standing with America and support French democracy with one simple act: he should pardon Le Pen.

The French President, like the American President, has a plenary power to pardon convicted criminals under the French Constitution. That power allows him to exempt a convict from serving part or all of her sentence.

Le Pen would not have her conviction expunged. But she would be able to run again in the 2027 presidential election and campaign in public.

Macron will surely not want to do this. He clearly views Le Pen and her National Rally as dangerous to the country. That’s why he brokered the so-called “democratic alliance” to stop National Rally from winning the second round of last year’s parliamentary election.

Pardoning Le Pen serves many purposes. First, it takes away her claim of being a martyr for French democracy. Others who have been subjected to legal procedures that would end their political lives, like Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, have rallied their adherents by claiming to be subject to “lawfare” and a “political witch hunt”.

Efforts to silence a prominent conservative populist via the law usually fails to keep populists from keeping or expanding their power. Driving Austrian Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache from office because of the so-called “Ibiza affair” in 2019 did not stop his successor, Herbert Kickl, from leading the party to first place in last year’s election.

That’s what early French polls suggest would happen if Le Pen is barred from running. Her deputy, Jordan Bardella, leads in a hypothetical contest in a late March poll, retaining 93 percent of voters who would have backed Le Pen.

It makes no sense to sustain an action that won’t materially harm your opponents, while giving them an issue that could allow them to expand their support. That latter point is happening now in Romania. 

The controversial decisions to annul that country’s first round results in its presidential election and bar the winner, Călin Georgescu, from running again has led to an increase in support for the replacement populist candidate, George Simion. Simion, who finished in fourth place in the annulled election, now leads most polls for both the first round and the runoff in May’s re-run.

Macron also needs to consider the relationship with America. Trump’s anger is nothing to ignore, and Macron surely wants to restore ties to America even as he works to strengthen the European Union’s economic and defence power. 

Pardoning Le Pen would be seen in Washington as an act of statesmanship and an indication that Macron understands that a union of democracies must ultimately respect the voters’ preferences.

A pardon could also paradoxically help Macron and his party directly. Macron cannot run again, but his approval ratings are a dismal 28 per cent. This is killing his centrist Ensemble alliance in the polls. 

The most recent parliamentary poll shows Ensemble would receive only 15 per cent, down from an already pathetic 22 per cent in the first round of last year’s vote. Given France’s continued parliamentary instability, it’s entirely plausible if not likely that Macron will need to dissolve the National Assembly and hold new elections again this year.

Pardoning Le Pen as an act of magnanimity taken in the interest of the whole country would surely take an issue away from Le Pen and Bardella. It could also perhaps lead some French voters to take another look at Macron and his party, saving it from political annihilation.

Pardoning Le Pen would shock many Frenchmen, but Macron is known to be mercurial and act swiftly in his own best interest. He should see that the populist forces on the march globally are now too strong to be easily resisted. 

Deploying some of his legendary cunning to give Le Pen a chance to make her case also gives her the chance to lose, again. If Macron can think a few moves ahead on the political chess board, he might see that giving her that opportunity is a much better way to remove her from politics than relying on the exercise of raw judicial force.