PULSE POINTS:

What Happened: The globalist magazine The Economist has defended Marine Le Pen’s right to run for office, recently stripped away by a court ruling.

Who’s Involved: The Economist, Marine Le Pen, French courts.

Where & When: The article appeared in The Economist on April 1.

Key Quote: “The aim should be to punish the offender without also punishing French democracy,” the magazine argues.

Impact: One of the major media outlets for globalists, the stance could reflect a shift against the lawfare deployed against populists in recent years.

IN FULL:

The globalist magazine The Economist has come out to defend populist French politician Marine Le Pen, who has been barred from running for office in France for five years and placed under house arrest for two years. The sentences came after Le Pen and several other members of her party, the National Rally, were found guilty of supposedly misusing European Union (EU) funds while serving as Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

The magazine questions whether Le Pen should be barred from running for office in the upcoming 2027 presidential election, noting that she is the current leader in the polls.

“The danger of courts aggressively sentencing politicians is that both the law and the courts become seen as partisan. Judiciaries rely on citizens accepting verdicts with which they disagree,” the magazine warns. Barely half, just 56 percent, of the French public believe Le Pen was treated in an unbiased manner.

While the magazine argues that Le Pen should serve two years of house arrest, it states that she should be allowed to run for president in 2027. “The aim should be to punish the offender without also punishing French democracy,” the magazine states.

The court ruling to ban Le Pen from running for office comes after she and other National Rally members were found guilty of embezzling European Union funds by using EU-funded parliamentary assistants to perform domestic party work. Le Pen argued that the charges were bogus lawfare, as parliamentary assistants are “political assistants to elected officials, political by definition.”

Many observers, including liberal journalists, have noted that parliamentary assistants performing political work is commonplace in the European Parliament, meaning Le Pen was almost certainly singled out for her political views.

Image by Blandine Le Cain.

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