As expected, the RN and some of the hardest right-wing factions cried scandal and conspiracy, not to mention the rather cumbersome international support from the reactionary international (Orban, Trump, Musk). Unsurprisingly still, rather sheepishly, the rest of the political spectrum has contented itself with muted statements or remained silent. As for LFI, it has adopted the anti-judge and plebiscitary discourse... of its worst enemies.

  “Clean hands and head held high”?

Yes, bourgeois justice and the law it is supposed to enforce are deeply questionable. Yes, the judicialisation of political struggle and of all social relations is a harmful phenomenon. Nevertheless, just like the multiple Sarkozy cases, the affair that earned Marine Le Pen her conviction is exemplary and the evidence is damning, especially for the heir to a party that claimed to have “clean hands and head held high” and a few years ago called for a lifetime ineligibility penalty for convicted politicians. Justice must be served, regardless of the defendant. It’s up to the political world to deal with it! By taking such a decision, far from undermining the famous “separation of powers”, the judiciary has sent the political powers back to their own turpitude. Certain principles and mechanisms of bourgeois democracy are achievements. When these apply for once to the most powerful, it is inappropriate to complain.

Photo credit: Photothèque Rouge /Martin Noda / Hans Lucas.

The far right still lying in wait

However, Marine Le Pen’s potential impediment only slightly undermines the far right’s ability to seize power in the short term. It could even amplify it if the RN succeeds in its victimisation operation. The fascist dynamic is of great depth, its roots have little to do with probity, which is in any case known to be dubious, of the RN.

Jordan Bardella could emerge victorious from the next election if he manages to unite the purely bourgeois far right from Sarkozysm and then Fillonism, now embodied by Reconquête and the last remnants of LR, with the plebeian far right that Marine Le Pen seeks to embody. This old project is also carried by Marion Maréchal, which is a factor of division... but also of alternative. Finally, the liberal extreme centre, embodied by Macronism, also in constant radicalisation, could take charge of a far-right policy in a form more controllable by the bourgeoisie, that is to say a mainstream, technocratic, pro-European illiberalism, and certainly very inspired by the libertarian experience underway in Argentina and especially in the United States.

Against fascism, unity and radicality

This is why only our struggles, on all fronts, will be able to avoid catastrophe. For if justice must be served and influences the political game, the latter remains sovereign and determining. Preventing the far right from crushing us under its iron heel calls for unity and radicality from our social camp in the streets, workplaces and study places, as well as at the ballot box.

New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA)

• NPA. Published Tuesday, 1 April 2025 at 17:09:
https://npa-lanticapitaliste.org/actualite/politique/le-pen-condamnee-la-lutte-contre-lextreme-droite-continue

 Le Pen Excluded from the next Presidential Election: Good Riddance!

Photo credit: Photothèque Rouge /Martin Noda / Hans Lucas.

Caught with their hands in the cookie jar! Marine Le Pen and other leaders and elected officials of the National Rally have been found guilty of covering up for years a misappropriation of public money, which not only allowed the RN to finance its apparatus at the expense of European taxpayers, but also to line their pockets in the process. Marine Le Pen may claim that there is no personal enrichment in this case, but her trial has shown that she did not hesitate to use European taxpayers’ funds to pay her father’s butler!

While the RN constantly denounces the laxity of the justice system and demands in its programme lifetime ineligibility for convicted politicians, it is disgraceful that it can whine about Marine Le Pen’s conviction and her ineligibility penalty, when the facts are clear, established and for very substantial sums! The return of authority that the RN calls for clearly does not apply to the most powerful, which is not a novelty since Le Pen and Bardella have always shown great indulgence towards corrupt politicians, as recently towards Sarkozy during each of his convictions.

For the NPA-l’Anticapitaliste, it is essential that politicians who organise a misappropriation of public money can be convicted and declared ineligible. That said, this conviction does not change the political situation: with Le Pen out of the way, the far right has no shortage of embodiments for the presidential election, where Bardella, Zemmour and Maréchal will compete to capture the votes of the electorate. The fascist threat posed by the RN is very real: it is not based on the person of Marine Le Pen, but on ultra-liberal policies that feed social despair, racist ideas and policies carried beyond the far right. With or without Marine Le Pen, this fascist peril is still as present, and only the construction in unity of an anti-fascist resistance and an alternative to predatory capitalism will be able to bar its way!

Montreuil, 1 April 2025

New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA)