When is a crime not a crime? When a far right political leader is caught with their hand in the till. It then becomes a stitch-up and an attack on democracy, at least according to the reactionary international who've lined up to defend Marine Le Pen in the wake of her sentence for defrauding the European Union. Viktor Orban, himself no stranger to corruption allegations put out a pitiful "Je Suis Marine". Nigel Farage claims Le Pen was "cancelled". A funny way of saying 'misappropriated funds' but then again he got done himself while still an MEP. Vladimir Putin had the cheek to call the verdict a "violation of democratic norms". Something, in fairness, he has a great deal of experience with. And a "this will backfire" came in from Elon Musk.
Is a five year prison sentence, two suspended, and a four-year ban from running for office a harsh punishment for embezzling €4m? Or a punishment that fits the crime? It's probably worth considering that Le Pen ensured the (then) National Front voted for the law she was convicted under in 2016. If there was a conspiracy out to get her, it's just as plausible to say she was part of it.
Unfortunately, some on the left have offered a faint echo of the extreme right's victimology. Jean-Luc Mélenchon said "The choice to dismiss an elected official should only belong to the people" and that the ballots and streets should see Le Pen off. Yanis Varoufakis would also like to see Le Pen "destroyed politically", and argued this was the sort of lawfare that was used against Donald Trump, but "the French are doing it in a more obvious, less defensible way than the American Democrats." And David Broder also writes that she should not be barred from standing for the French presidency because it hands the National Rally a propaganda coup.
Does it? Trump remains culpable for the storming of the Capitol in 2021, and it's down to a failure of constitutionalist politicians on both sides of Congress for failing to make more of it and not prosecuting him with sufficient vigour. The drawn out and half-arsed pursuit of Trump through the courts allowed him to construct a persecution narrative that was always going to play well in a country where similar gambits from the right have played well in the past. One should never underestimate the appeal of the insurgent outsider. But does this read map onto France? Le Pen is certainly playing that card, but cannot escape from the fact that the prosecution and verdict proceeded without any evidence of political interference. She was corrupt and was found to be corrupt - just like any other establishment politician. The sentence was not special or egregious, and has been handed down to others for less. Le Pen's problem with the politics is that she now stands exposed as someone on the take, which isn't ideal when one's project has built up populist capital railing against establishment snouts in the trough.
The second issue with the left critique is its statement of the obvious, as if it's a profundity rather than a banality. Of course the extreme right have to be faced down politically and defeated. No one, not even the most venal and dumb elements of Macron's coalition think Le Pen's conviction means job done. So just who is the likes of Varoufakis taking to task for pretending this is the case? This is where he and the others run the risk of affirming the far right's framing. Giving credence the the RN's version is ... giving credence to the RN's version. The left should be clear that it's not the French establishment persecuting an inconvenient "outsider" via the law. This situation is the result of Le Pen's proven criminality, nothing else. No crime, no prosecution, it's as simple as that. Instead of offering backhanded defences of Le Pen, taking the RN on means adding her conviction to the political charge sheet. It's not a substitution for all other things that need to be done to break the far right, but her own incompetence and idiocy has handed her opponents a potentially useful weapon. One should not look a gift horse in the mouth, and the left should not leave this issue alone to be monopolised by the Macronites.
Image Credit
8 comments:
All of the umpteen parties and groups of parties present in the EU parliament use the funding supposedly just for EU related work , to fund their general national political activities.That is the bogus charge behind the Le Pen "corruption" charges. To repeat, all of the EU parliament parties do exactly the same., from Right to Left. But the EU and the French state decide to knock out the, anti NATO proxy war, leading French presidential candidate alone via this stitch up. OK with you though , Phil.
In the Romanian Presidential elections the leading, Far Right, but anti NATO, candidate won the first round of the Presidential elections, which were ruled null and void by the courts on a entirely bogus pretext, and the candidate then banned from standing in the re-run election. Great stuff for Guardianistas and foolish Lefties . But just as anti terrorist legislation in the UK is now used to attack and arrest pacifist activists on Gaza in Quaker meeting places, so the Left too can be, and will be, stitched up and suppressed by the emerging hard authoritarian neoliberal warmonger state when they present a threat to the machinations of the Europe-wide facade democracies. Your misplaced glee at the dodgy prosecution of Le Pen is misplaced, Phil. We are next when it serves the needs of the warmo gerstates if Europe..
You're basically arguing she should be given special treatment, which is no different to the far right's argument. The rest of this comment is irrelevant fluff. She's part of a crooked political establishment who has got done for fraud. Cry me a river.
Le Pen HAS been given "special treatment" , Phil, in that all parties do exactly the same diversion of funds as Le Pen, yet haven' t been prosecuted. Cheering on neoliberal chicanery by the French state to knock out the leading non mainstream candidate is not the way to fight neo fascism. All this manoeuver by the French establishment does is reinforce the narrative of the National Rally that they are some sort of radical non mainstream alternative to the toxic status quo for pissed off voters. Le Pen and co will actually benefit from this state chicanery via increased voter support. You lean on the state to combat fascism if you want, Phil. How often has that tactic gone sour for the Left ?
You clearly know very little about French politics.
Richard Ferrand, a key Macron ally - on the take for property transactions. Spared so far only because he got voted out.
Francois Fillon of the centre right Republicans, done in 2020 and sentenced for five years for embezzlement.
Bruno Le Roux of the Socialists, thrown out of government for employing his daughters.
And then there are the widely-publicised cases of Jacques Chirac and Nicholas Sarkozy.
So no, there is nothing unusual about prosecuting Le Pen and her allies for being on the take.
Do some stand to gain from Le Pen's conviction? Of course, but political consequences are not the same thing as political causes.
Which comes back to the original point. You are peddling the same line as the far right. No wonder you want to stay anonymous.
Yes, they all do it, the entire EU quite deliberately runs off this and similar 'corruption' because (nearly) everybody needs some sort of sweetener to cooperate. So far, so mundane.
I do sometimes wonder if this is a fracture line between the UK and the continent, not because the UK doesn't have political corruption, but because what corruption 'counts' as corruption can differ, and what is deemed an acceptable response can differ too.
As for Le Pen, she has been retrospectively convicted of crimes that weren't crimes when they were committed, because she apparently stopped committing them when they became crimes. In many countries, like the UK, this level of judicial corruption itself simply wouldn't fly (see my earlier point about attitudes to corruption). We'll see if the French Gov't pursues action against all the others who undoubtedly fall into this category, but I won't be holding my breath. Or maybe, they'll do a 'Lagarde', find them guilty, decline to punish and then appoint them to a sensitive post which really shouldn't be held by someone tainted by corruption?
I suppose for many people their view on abusive political lawfare is not based on what the basis of it is, or if it's consistent and fair, but simply whether they like or dislike who it is being done to. But once you set the precedent of allowing it for the ones you dislike, you can't complain if blows back on the ones you do like!
So, the defence is a bit like "Stop looking at her hand in the till when all those other hands might be, or would be if you really looked. After all, if everyone's at it then it can't be wrong, can it? Ok, so it is wrong and she's been caught, but its not fair because others haven't and they definitely did it too. I mean, all those posts on F**kwits.com can't be wrong, can they?"
We have two posters above saying everyone's at it and we all know that's what carries weight in a court of law - some mug's internet opinion.
No surprise that @Kamo is straight in defending law breaking and corruption. It's funny how the Law'n'Order' brigade are not so keen on it when its their own who are targeted. But the Law is meant to keep the rabble under control, eh Kamo?
You don't appear to have read my two posts, Sean, but just produced a ranting post indistinguishable from The Guardian's recent pompous effort. That the state machinery of France , abetted by the EU bureaucracy , chose to prosecute Le Pen and the RN alone , for an offence universal among all the European Parliament parties to fund their national political work, is evidence, along with the recent dodgy crushing by pseudo legal means, of the leading presidential candidate in Romania, demonstrates that the nowadays facade democracies of the EU will not countenance any opposition to their neoliberal, suicidally warmongering, direction of travel. But you carry on , with all the Guardianista class, pretending the issue here is some petty issue of "hands in the till" . In the meantime onward Europe and NATO go in lock step to nuclear armageddon, as its proxy war with Russia escalates out of control. Sean, regardless of being very Right Wing, Le Pen, and the ex Romanian presidential candidate, are for stepping back from NATO' s suicidal proxy war. That is why they were picked out to be crushed by pseudo legalistic means. See the bigger picture, Sean, for goodness sakes. Any Left Wing anti war movement, on Gaza for instance , will be, and is being, crushed by the same pseudo legal means. Gloating at the current treatment of Le Pen and co, is naive to say the least. The Left is next in line for this treatment.
Ingroups whom the law protects but does not bind, outgroups whom the law binds but does not protect.
Post a Comment