Marine Le Pen’s party has no chance of winning the French presidency without her

When Marine Le Pen took over the running of France’s National Front, she pledged a new dawn for a party firmly associated with pernicious racism.

She said the extreme prejudices of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen – the convicted Holocaust denier who founded the FN along with former Nazi soldiers in 1972 – had no part to play in the party’s future. What she did not mention during the changeover in 2011 was what would happen if her criminal activity around the European Parliament was exposed.

It came into sharp focus today when Madame Le Pen was found guilty of “embezzling public funds” and was handed a four-year prison sentence, subject to appeal.

Just as devastating, the 56-year-old was told she would not be allowed to run for public office during a five-year period that will cover the French presidential election in two years.

Emmanuel Macron, the republic’s current head of state, will be forced to stand down in 2027, having served the maximum two terms allowed, and Le Pen was widely tipped to succeed him.

The country is undoubtedly moving to the right, and Le Pen’s fiercely anti-immigrant party – which is now called the National Rally – attracted more than 13 million voters when she came runner-up to Macron in the 2022 presidential election.

As always in France, a long appeals process will now see Le Pen challenging the Paris correctional court judgement – but the chances of a convicted criminal ever succeeding Macron are extremely low.

The evidence against Le Pen was compelling: she was the ringleader of a racket that went on for at least 10 years as the RN turned the EU parliament into a “cash cow”, according to prosecutors.

Her father was an MEP for most of that time, and – if it wasn’t for his death in January at the age of 96 – he would have been in the dock, too.

Both Le Pens were at the heart and soul of the dynastic party that has always relied on their charisma and undoubted political skill.

In contrast, Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s likely successor as the RN’s presidential candidate, is only 29 and has nothing like the clout necessary to take her place. Party sources have admitted that, in the run-up to the trial, Bardella did not represent a “plan B”.

On the contrary, they were relying on a legal miracle to see Le Pen cleared so that she could concentrate on her politics.

“The case was taboo inside party headquarters because a conviction was unthinkable,” said a senior RN MP – one of 123 in the National Assembly, where it represents the largest party.

“Both Le Pens have faced plenty of legal action in the past, and Marine is a qualified lawyer who knows how to defend herself. There was a strong suspicion that left-wing judges were trying to defeat her without an election, and there was no way she was going to let them succeed.”

Conspiracy theories are very popular among those on the hard-right nowadays – just ask American president Donald Trump – but even the most suspicious RN supporter would find it hard to argue against the evidence heard during Le Pen’s trial. It portrayed a manipulative, criminally minded defendant who, according to the judgement, was quite “happy to undermine democracy” in her desperation for power.

Le Pen’s huge personality and dynamic media presence could not save her – and nor could an RN created in her family name.

The party will try to revitalise itself – before and after the tortuous appeal process – but there is every likelihood that it will go down with Le Pen. In the meantime, its chances of ever delivering a French president are, at present, very close to zero.