MAGA influencers used a guilty verdict against a French far-right leader Monday as evidence of Europe’s anti-democratic tendencies, claiming Marine Le Pen was only targeted due to her views.
Le Pen has been jailed for four years and banned from standing for office after a court found her guilty of embezzling millions of euros from the European Parliament.
Le Pen, one of the frontrunners for the French presidency in 2027, stormed out of the courtroom as a judge fined her about $108,000 and handed her an immediate five-year ban from public office, effectively ending her presidential ambitions.
The National Rally leader and her two dozen co-defendants were accused of using the European Parliament as a “cash cow,” siphoning funds and salaries from the organization to fund their party while refusing to do any work.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) called the verdict “Tyranny.”
“Wow so crazy this kinda thing keeps happening to right wing politicians,” right-wing influencer Tim Pool wrote. “This proves that right wingers who gain popularity in every country are criminals.”
Pool retweeted author Ryan James Girdursky, who said: “I wrote in my book and I meant every word of it… the European Union is the single most anti-democratic entity in the Western world. No single government body works harder to stop the will of the people.”
Influential MAGA account End Wokeness responded by posting “Democracy is officially dead in Europe,” while pro-Trump influencer Inevitable West tweeted: “Le Pen was expected to win the next French Presidential election by 18%.
“France just banned her from running. Democracy has died in Europe.”
“Romania, Brazil, and France all banned their top opposition candidates from competing. Dark times,” the End Wokeness account added.
Monday’s decision came as a huge shock to Le Pen, the BBC reports. She previously told French media she was expecting a guilty verdict but assumed a judge would not “dare” to ban her from office.
Twenty-nine-year-old Jordan Bardella, National Rally’s president and a rising star on the French far right, is now expected to take her place as the party’s presidential candidate. Le Pen’s fine and jail sentence can be appealed, but her ban cannot, the judge ruled.
The verdict has prompted fury from far-right figures in Europe, who decried it as “undemocratic” and threw their support behind Le Pen. Immediately after the verdict was announced, Bardella tweeted “Today, it is not only Marine Le Pen who is being unjustly condemned: it is French democracy that has been executed.”
Hungary’s autocratic president, Viktor Orban, offered similar support, tweeting “Je Suis Marine,” while Italy’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, denounced the verdict as “a declaration of war by Brussels.”
Marion Maréchal, a French far-right politician and Le Pen’s niece, accused the judges of “thinking about themselves as above the people” and claimed the verdict was only given because the National Rally were on course for victory in the upcoming elections.
In Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed the verdict showed “more and more European capitals are going down the path of trampling over democratic norms.”
He added: “Of course, we do not want to interfere in France’s internal affairs, we have never done so … But in general, our observations of European capitals show that they are not at all reluctant to go beyond democracy during the political process.”
Le Pen has not yet publicly commented on the verdict but has been invited onto French current affairs show Journal de 20 heures on Monday evening where she is expected to make a statement.
