French opposition politicians seem to be getting convicted of crimes as often as their Russian counterparts lately. First, former President Nicolas Sarkozy, now National Rally leader Marine Le Pen. Le Pen was convicted today of embezzlement charges, and given a two-year suspended prison sentence and one year of wearing an electronic monitoring anklet. France 24 reported the news as follows:

The suspense is over. The leader of the French far right, Marine #LePen, has been found guilty on appeal in the case of the parliamentary assistants of the National Front’s MEPs.

She has been sentenced to 45 months of ineligibility, including 30 suspended. She can presumably run for the #présidentielle of 2027, but the Paris Court of Appeal has also sentenced her to one year of electronic monitoring.

Le Pen’s heir apparent in National Rally, Jordan Bardella, reiterated his support and loyalty to her the day before her conviction, writing:

On the eve of a decision that will matter far beyond a mere court hearing, I want to address Marine Le Pen, the activist, the political leader, and the friend that she is.

Fourteen years ago, day for day, from the HLM housing project in Saint-Denis where I grew up, it was she who gave me a taste for commitment, the desire to devote my time, my energy, and now my life to serving ideas, a people, and its flag.

I was sixteen years old, I knew nothing of the place where this path would lead us. But I already knew why we had to take it.

Over the years, under the gaze of the French people, Marine granted me her trust, her unwavering support, then her friendship. She enabled me to take on responsibilities that I never would have imagined exercising when, as a teenager, I decided to cross the threshold of a political party for the first time.

For all these years at her side, in this vast human adventure, I have seen political combat in its most demanding, harshest, and sometimes most unjust aspects. With Marine, we have lived the joys of victorious campaigns, the political successes wrested through hard work and perseverance, but also the defeats, the disappointments, the betrayals, and sometimes the tears of personal trials.

Every day, in contact with the French people, we measure their difficulties, their worries, and sometimes their discouragement. We hear their sufferings, their sense of abandonment, but also their immense hope: that of seeing France regain its strength, its unity, its freedom, and its pride. It is this expectation of a French renaissance that guides our commitment and that gives us, despite the trials, the will to keep fighting.

In Marine Le Pen, there are strengths that nothing has ever been able to take from her: solidity, resilience, and above all, the deep conviction that France deserves that we fight for it. More than anyone, I can testify to her sincerity toward you, her honesty, her love for the French people.

Tonight, I want to publicly tell her again what I tell her in life: my support is total, and my loyalty will never depend on circumstances. I do not forget to whom I owe having found the path of commitment. And I do not forget the battles that we promised each other to fight together.

Tomorrow will be an important day, an extraordinary one. But I want to say it again here: nothing can justify Marine Le Pen being excluded from the choice of the French people and prevented from presenting herself before them.

At a time when millions of French people place their hopes and trust in her, depriving her of the possibility of seeking their votes would constitute a grave assault on the free choice of the French people.

Whatever the next 24 hours hold for us, we will continue, with the same determination, with the same loyalty to those who count on us.

To you, Marine, I simply want to say this: you could count on me yesterday, you can count on me today, and you will be able to count on me tomorrow. Together, for all the French people, until victory.

Le Pen has said she will support Bardella if convicted, posting on X.com:

If justice forbids me from running in the presidential election, then it is with all my energy, and great confidence in him, that I will support every day and until his victory, the candidacy of Jordan Bardella!

Politico reported last week that Le Pen had said she would not run for president if forced to wear an ankle monitor during the campaign. Victor Goury-Laffont wrote:

PARIS — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen said Wednesday she wouldn’t run for the presidency if a court sentences her to wear an ankle bracelet — even if her electoral ban is lifted.

Speaking to French broadcaster BFMTV in her first interview since French prosecutors asked a court to uphold the five-year electoral ban she is currently serving, Le Pen again ruled out several scenarios under which she would run for president. Her defiance makes it increasingly unlikely she will run in next year’s election to replace term-limited Emmanuel Macron.

Marion Maréchal, Le Pen’s niece and political ally, wrote this response to her aunt’s conviction:

Dear Marine,

A few hours before the verdict, in this vigil of arms, I wanted to write you these few words.

“Fear is a feeling that is foreign to me,” you said a few days ago, when you were questioned about the upcoming verdict. In doing so, you bore witness to the tenacity that earns you the respect of your supporters, the dogged pursuit of our adversaries, but also the confidence of millions of French people.

Those who hope to eliminate you from the political arena, those who imagine that a conviction would prevent you from continuing to fight for the French, are making a poor calculation. I have been one of the privileged witnesses to your resilience in the face of trials, whether political or personal. I know that, whatever the judges’ decision, nothing will stop for you tomorrow, quite simply because we will need you in the difficult years ahead.

They have undoubtedly forgotten that our family and our fight were forged in decades of fierce struggles. No, the Le Pens have never needed a parliamentary mandate to defend our country and our people.

We are both militants, we both have our convictions, and our stubborn Breton heads have known their disagreements and even their clashes. Who better than me, then, to recognize that you have managed to transform the heroic hours of the Front National into the Rassemblement National, which has established itself as the country’s leading political force?

Yes, today, the national camp is very close to victory and—above all—ready to assume it.

You have managed to unite us, broaden our reach and extend a hand, freeing the party from the trap of “alone against all.” You have prepared and trained others to take up the torch, Jordan first and foremost.

@MLP_officiel
, whatever the outcome of this verdict, I know that we will have to count on you in the years to come as an indispensable actor in the political fight. I know that it is all together that we will go in search of victory. And that, whatever is decided tomorrow, this forthcoming victory will also be yours.

Marion