JERUSALEM — The recent court conviction of popular right-wing politician Marine Le Pen has ignited outrage from President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency head, Elon Musk. Musk compared her circumstances to Trump’s own legal challenges.
Following the verdict, Musk stated, “This will backfire, like the legal attacks against President Trump.” He attributed the blame for Le Pen’s conviction to the left, asserting that, “When the radical left can’t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents. This is their standard playbook throughout the world.”
Le Pen’s conviction, which prohibits her from running for office for five years, comes amid legal prosecutions of other right-wing politicians, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Romania’s Călin Georgescu, as well as former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
According to Fox News Digital, legal experts have drawn parallels between Trump’s conviction for falsifying business records and Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial.
When asked about Le Pen’s sentence, Trump remarked to reporters, “It’s a big deal. But she was banned for running for five years, and she’s the leading candidate. That sounds very much like this country.”
Other notable cases of right-wing politicians facing legal challenges include Netanyahu, who is currently embroiled in a saga of fraud, breach of trust, and bribery charges. He has consistently denied all allegations against him.
Romania’s presidential frontrunner, Georgescu, was also barred from the race due to criminal charges he likened to those faced by Trump.
“We are faced with a communist regime as well,” Georgescu told Fox News Digital shortly before being disqualified from the May presidential election rerun, following a criminal case opened against him two weeks prior.
Last week, Brazil’s Supreme Court agreed to hear charges against Bolsonaro regarding an alleged attempt to cling to power after his 2022 electoral defeat.
Italy’s Vice Premier Matteo Salvini, who was exonerated in December for illegally detaining migrants, characterized his case as “a declaration of war by Brussels.”
Eugene Kontorovich, a legal expert and senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, commented, “France reflects the pattern of political prosecutions seen in the U.S. and Israel, where obscure victimless offenses are weaponized to eliminate popular right-wing leaders. It is no coincidence that these cases are emerging in close proximity; leftists globally are learning from and legitimizing one another’s tactics.”
ROMANIA BLOCKS FRONTRUNNER FROM POSTPONED PRESIDENTIAL RACE
The core of the embezzlement case against Le Pen involves allegations that she and over 20 other National Rally members used EU funds to pay employees for tasks related to the National Rally, rather than fulfilling obligations to the European Parliament as mandated by EU regulations.
The French court sentenced Le Pen to four years in prison, resulting in a political upheaval in France with the next presidential election scheduled for 2027.
Right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a Trump ally, expressed solidarity with Le Pen by posting in French, “Je suis Marine!” (“I am Marine”), echoing the slogan “Je suis Charlie” created after the 2015 terrorist attacks on Charlie Hebdo journalists.
Le Pen has significantly transformed the anti-immigration National Rally party into a formidable political entity that is a serious contender for the 2027 presidential election.
She succeeded in distancing the party from her father’s legacy, the late Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the National Front and faced fines for minimizing the Holocaust.
Marine Le Pen’s protégé, the 29-year-old Jordan Bardella, recently attended an Israeli government conference focused on combating antisemitism. He is expected to succeed Le Pen as the party leader and has urged a “peaceful mobilization” in response to the verdict.
According to French24, Bardella claimed the guilty verdict has “killed” French democracy, launching a petition that states, “It is no longer the government of judges, but the dictatorship of judges, which wishes to prevent the French people from expressing themselves.”
Le Pen’s legal representative, Rodolphe Bosselut, announced plans to appeal the verdict.
Holland’s right-wing politician Geert Wilders, often compared to Trump, expressed his shock at the harsh sentence against Le Pen, stating, “I support and believe in her 100% and I trust she will win the appeal and become President of France.”
