The France Unbowed has never defended Marine Le Pen nor questioned the probity of judges.
The acts which Marine Le Pen and 23 members of the RN [National Rally] have been convicted of committing are very grave. According to the judgement, Marine Le Pen orchestrated a system of misappropriation of European parliamentary assistants for certain RN deputies for the profit of her party, amounting to about 4.1 million euros. These acts are dangerous for democracy, because they permitted the RN to benefit from more funding than other parties and thus distort the electoral process in this country. In addition to being declared ineligible [for upcoming elections], Marine Le Pen was therefore sentenced to four years' imprisonment, two of which must be served.
The France Unbowed accepts the court's decision. The threats made against the judge who handed down the ruling are intolerable and clearly demonstrate the danger of the far right. The France Unbowed does not contest ineligibility as a penalty. Our program, The Future in Common, proposes ineligibility for those convicted of corruption.
On the other hand, in line with the position that the Unbowed have always expressed, we do not agree with the immediate execution of the penalty of ineligibility, known in legal terms as “provisional execution”. This seems questionable from the point of view of the right to an effective remedy which follows from Article 16 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. This position is shared by the vice-president of the LDH [Human Rights League] and emeritus judge Évelyne Sire-Marin. Like the Unbowed, she recognizes that the legal dispositives designed to deprive individuals of their right to redress are often used in the repression of trade unionists, environmental activists, and social movements in general. Of course, this is not the case here, but for the Unbowed, the principles at stake cannot be subject to a sliding scale.
The France Unbowed proposes in its program a justice system that works for the people, ensuring the defense of the general interest and the equality of all before the law. The Unbowed do not subject the law to a sliding scale, and oppose in principle provisional execution as it runs contrary to the principle of the right to an effective remedy. Consider if the provisional execution of ineligibility were followed by an acquittal on appeal: in this hypothetical, the people would have been deprived of their sovereignty and choice of representatives.
Beyond the specifics of this case, which does not seem to show any such signs given how clearly the facts are established, the risks of justice being instrumentalized for political ends may exist. In Brazil, for example, Lula was prevented from running in the 2018 presidential election due to a sentence of ineligibility handed down even though all his appeals had not been exhausted and the UN Human Rights Council had called for the ineligibility to be lifted. That election ended in victory for Jair Bolsonaro. Lula was finally found innocent on appeal and was able to stand and win the 2022 elections.
To say this is neither to support Marine Le Pen nor the acts she committed. On the contrary, because the Unbowed stand firm on our principles even when that might seem to help our political enemies, the hypocrisy of Marine Le Pen and the RN is even clearer. In 2004, Marine Le Pen said: “everyone has picked from the purse except the National Front”. In 2013, she said she favored lifetime ineligibility for everyone convicted for misappropriating public funds: “I have heard the President of the Republic say that we ought to render ineligible for life those who have been convicted, and until here I was with him in complete agreement, it was part of my presidential project, for corruption and fraud. And why not the rest? Why not for misappropriation of public funds?” And finally, if Marine Le Pen's program were applied, she would have to spend her two years in prison behind bars—not wearing an ankle bracelet.
Marine Le Pen is the incarnation of the very system she claims to oppose. Some of her lieutenants have, in her defense, argued that the conviction of Nicolas Sarkozy—corrupted by a foreign power—was also an assault on democracy. What the RN wants is impunity for the privileged caste. They never say a word about the Yellow Vests, the trade unionists, the activists who are victims of repression. This is why the reactionary international from Putin to Trump and Orbán have rushed to her defense.
The Unbowed have also warned against any illusion that the political combat against the far right can be avoided by legal procedures. Trials and even convictions in the recent past of figures like Donald Trump in the United States or Silvio Berlusconi in Italy have not prevented them from continuing their nefarious work. The fight against the far right must be waged on every front—by offering a real break from the system and building a popular, anti-racist alternative. The Unbowed will fight on with unwavering resolve.
This affair also evidences the need for a 6th Republic that will respect popular sovereignty. Citizens should not be excluded from public life: this is the foundation of democracy. Faced with such serious cases, the people must have the right to vote and decide whether or not to recall their representatives. This is what a citizens' initiative referendum could provide by enabling a vote to remove elected officials as soon as a sufficient number of signatures are gathered.
