{"id":279753,"date":"2025-04-11T16:21:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T16:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/11\/marine-le-pens-witch-hunt-talk-echoes-trump-will-it-work-in-france\/"},"modified":"2025-04-11T16:21:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T16:21:18","slug":"marine-le-pens-witch-hunt-talk-echoes-trump-will-it-work-in-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/11\/marine-le-pens-witch-hunt-talk-echoes-trump-will-it-work-in-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Marine Le Pen\u2019s \u2018Witch Hunt\u2019 Talk Echoes Trump. Will It Work in France?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/10\/multimedia\/10int-LePen-Future-blgj\/10int-LePen-Future-blgj-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Marine Le Pen\u2019s \u2018Witch Hunt\u2019 Talk Echoes Trump. Will It Work in France?\" title=\"Marine Le Pen\u2019s \u2018Witch Hunt\u2019 Talk Echoes Trump. Will It Work in France?\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Since a Paris court barred her from standing for public office, Marine Le Pen has denounced a \u201cwitch hunt,\u201d accused \u201cthe system\u201d of deploying \u201ca nuclear bomb\u201d against her, evoked \u201cjudicial tyranny,\u201d and suggested her followers are treated as \u201csubhuman.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In short, the French far-right leader, having spent the past 15 years trying to shed the extreme image and views of her party and make it more palatable to the political mainstream, has paused her makeover. She has embraced a Trump-like <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/31\/world\/europe\/marine-le-pen-embezzelment-democracy.html?searchResultPosition=1\" title=\"\">fury against \u201cthe system,\u201d<\/a> now used as a byword for the alleged plotting of the deep state and political judges against her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Nowhere has Ms. Le Pen addressed in any detail the charges emanating from a nine-year investigation that found she orchestrated an illegal scheme to divert public money meant for use at the European Parliament to her National Rally party as it stood on the brink of financial collapse. In delivering a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/31\/world\/europe\/france-marine-le-pen-embezzlement-2027-election-ban.html\" title=\"\">guilty verdict and sentence<\/a> on March 31, the judges emphasized that no politician stands above the law.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Le Pen\u2019s approach may be risky. For now, it is unclear whether the energizing ire of President Trump and his ardent support will benefit Ms. Le Pen and the other anti-immigrant far-right leaders in Europe \u2014 what President Emmanuel Macron of France, a centrist, has called \u201cthe Reactionary International.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Might <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/04\/world\/europe\/trump-marine-le-pen-conviction.html?searchResultPosition=5\" title=\"\">Mr. Trump\u2019s embrace<\/a> undermine them, given the on-and-off trade war with Europe, the erratic unpredictability and the draconian government-slashing steps of the president\u2019s first weeks in office? Europe, after all, is the land of generous social safety nets, not of libertarian state dismantlement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWith her back to the wall, Le Pen has reacted like a wounded beast from Trump world,\u201d said Rapha\u00ebl Llorca, a center-left author and political analyst. \u201cBut her core electorate is dismayed by the stripping of public services, Musk and Tesla. It is much closer to Trump 1.0 and Bannon than Trump 2.0.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Le Pen has gone on the attack while abjuring any \u201cbrutality\u201d by her followers. Angry mobs are not what she wants in the streets. Though leading a party with a racist past, she has even clothed herself in \u201cthe peaceful methods of Martin Luther King Jr. for civil rights.\u201d Still, the National Rally, affronted, has turned from the soft, ubiquitous imagery of <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.parismatch.com\/Actu\/Politique\/Betes-de-pouvoir-Marine-Le-Pen-Les-chats-me-consolent-1567340\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Ms. Le Pen with her beloved pet cats<\/a> to the claws of confrontation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe do not believe that three judges in an office can confiscate an election from millions of French people,\u201d Laurent Jacobelli, a National Rally member of the French Parliament, said in an interview. \u201cMs. Le Pen is innocent and our candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In opinion polls for the 2027 presidential elections, Ms. Le Pen has led comfortably, though not by enough to avoid a runoff. It appears that about half the country believes she should be allowed to run, despite her conviction on embezzlement charges. She has appealed; it is conceivable that a more lenient sentence from the appeals court next year would allow her to compete.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe have no Plan B, only Plan A, Le Pen for president,\u201d Philippe Olivier, her brother-in-law and close adviser, and a National Rally lawmaker in the European Parliament, said in an interview. \u201cWe are not Trumpist, we are not out for revenge, but we believe he\u2019s a positive influence. He\u2019s burying globalization, and we favor that, and we believe he will force Europe not to sink in uncontrolled immigration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">European hard-right parties, some with fascist antecedents, hope to capitalize on Mr. Trump\u2019s unrelenting presence and emulate his victory. But it remains to be seen whether they will benefit from a \u201cTrump bump,\u201d and if so, how long it would last.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Germany, a recent Ipsos poll found that the far-right Alternative for Germany, known as the AfD, had surged in recent weeks to become the party with the most support, at 25 percent of a hypothetical vote, just ahead of the center-right Christian Democrats of the incoming chancellor, Friedrich Merz. The AfD won 20.8 percent of the vote in February elections.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But there are already tensions over the Trump effect. Alice Weidel, an AfD leader, distanced herself from Mr. Trump\u2019s ephemeral \u201cLiberation Day\u201d tariff hikes, whereas her co-leader, Tino Chrupalla, told the Bild newspaper that \u201cTrump wants to force other countries to negotiate. He wants to improve the U.S. trade balance and stimulate industry. That\u2019s understandable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister who has edged toward the center from political roots in a post-fascist party, has attempted a balancing act, declining to criticize Mr. Trump over Ukraine, for example, while saying his tariffs were wrong. Her far-right deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, has taken a more pro-Trump line, in a country where European rearmament in response to Mr. Trump\u2019s more adversarial United States has many critics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Once drawn to Mr. Trump, Ms. Le Pen had been cautious about him more recently, even as her angry attacks on the legal system have aligned her with him. Once drawn to Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Ms. Le Pen has publicly pulled away from him in the light of Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine. Now her official line is \u201cequidistance\u201d from Russia and the United States for a sovereign France, without much explanation of what that might entail.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In France, dismay at Mr. Trump\u2019s policies is widespread and the national mood is uneasy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt seems Americans who voted for Trump are getting more than they bargained for,\u201d said James Lieber, a Paris-based American consultant. \u201cFrench people inclined to vote for Le Pen are certainly wondering about that. They\u2019re asking what might get shut down, who might get thrown out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Within the National Rally, which appeared unprepared for the verdict against Ms. Le Pen and held a hastily arranged Paris rally last weekend that drew only a modest crowd, there have been adamant assertions of unity in the face of uncertainty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It is far from a given that Ms. Le Pen will win on appeal and be able to run, yet airing any alternative, such as the candidacy of Jordan Bardella, her smooth prot\u00e9g\u00e9, is taboo.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Jacobelli, the National Rally lawmaker, described Ms. Le Pen as the \u201conly alternative\u201d to \u201cthose who have run the country for 40 years and proved incapable of changing it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That view has wide support. But she has also lost three consecutive presidential bids and has been convicted of stealing public money, something the French are very sensitive about. Evidence put forward by the court demonstrated her close operational ties with her late father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the former party leader who dismissed the Holocaust as \u201ca detail\u201d of history and was <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/08\/21\/world\/europe\/jean-marie-le-pen-france-national-front-party.html?searchResultPosition=1\" title=\"\">publicly disavowed by the party<\/a> a decade ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cTrump\u2019s view is that judges are used to block a political career,\u201d said Anne-Charl\u00e8ne Bezzina, a senior lecturer in public law at the University of Rouen. \u201cIn France, we see a generalization of the idea that judges are not legitimate. As a jurist my great fear is the erosion of the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That\u2019s precisely what Ms. Le Pen claims to see in the verdict against her, from three judges applying the law of the land, based on reams of evidence presented against her. Now sounding like a full-throated outsider, she rails against a \u201cpolitical decision that flouts the rule of law and democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Reporting was contributed by S\u00e9gol\u00e8ne Le Stradic in Paris, Christopher F. Schuetze in Berlin and Emma Bubola in Rome.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/11\/world\/europe\/le-pen-trump-rhetoric-france.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since a Paris court barred her from standing for public office, Marine Le Pen has denounced a \u201cwitch hunt,\u201d accused \u201cthe system\u201d of deploying \u201ca nuclear bomb\u201d against her, evoked \u201cjudicial tyranny,\u201d and suggested her followers are treated as \u201csubhuman.\u201d In short, the French far-right leader, having spent the past 15 years trying to shed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/10\/multimedia\/10int-LePen-Future-blgj\/10int-LePen-Future-blgj-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[53112,163424,64091,155970,163575,7875,19393,896,96465,9403,3319,165514,182062,165513,6896,108200,145235,148503,35881,137131,108201,216423,4609,52,167002,31785,1396],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279753"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279755,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279753\/revisions\/279755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}