This article is an opinion piece whose contents represent the standpoint of its author and not UPF Lund or The Perspective’s editorial board.
In recent months, many far-right politicians around the world have faced judicial setbacks and public scandals. Instead of crying about it, they could try playing by the same rules we all do.
France’s national holiday is held every year on the 14th of July, known internationally as Bastille Day. That day commemorates the beginning of the French Revolution, the end of the Ancien Régime, and the gradual shift to a democratic Republic. This year, though, there is a strong case to be made to celebrate the 31st of March instead: the day someone finally stood up to Marine Le Pen.
That day, the far-right leader of the Rassemblement National was standing trial along with twenty other party members for the embezzlement of €2.9 million from EU funds, which occurred between 2004 and 2016. Prosecutors described a complex scheme through which the party financed the salary of national staff with funds normally reserved for European Parliament assistants. In the end, Le Pen was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison along with a five-year ban from elected office. The prison sentence, albeit symbolically important, was reduced to two years with an ankle monitor. The electoral ban, however, was critical, barring Marine Le Pen from running for President in 2027.
On the same day her sentence was revealed, Le Pen was interviewed on the prime-time evening news on TF1, France’s largest television channel. Drawing bad excuses from her copy of Populism for Dummies, she claimed that this was a political decision from a left-wing judge; that ‘the system’ was trying to prevent her— the current front-runner of the presidential election according to some early polls— from cruising to an easy victory; and that the timing of the decision would likely prevent the opportunity for the case to be appealed before the election. Since then, the Court of Appeal has indicated that a summer 2026 retrial would be possible in Marine Le Pen’s case. All in all, Le Pen’s arguments revolved around the idea that the court’s decision was an attack on democracy, and that the French people — not the justice system — should decide on her political future in the voting booths. To this, I tell her:
Just don’t commit crimes.
Oh woe is she, persecuted by the justice system for crimes she did commit! Marine Le Pen would like all of us to believe that ‘the elites’ are coming after her for standing up to ‘the system’. Marine is the real victim here! Please disregard the one-hundred-and-fifty-two page long decision from the court, describing in minute details Marine Le Pen’s involvement in the Rassemblement National’s embezzlement scheme.
All French citizens are (supposedly) equal in matters of law, and Marine Le Pen would like to pretend that she was treated unfairly. But, in truth — which other convicted criminal gets to defend themselves on prime-time news? Which other convicted criminal gets to have a faster appeal because of their political status? Which other convicted criminal gets to have the (partial) support of the sitting prime minister? To most of us French people, this blatant preferential treatment is a stain on our nation’s pretense of equality. To Marine Le Pen and her supporters, facing consequences at all is the strongest of discriminations.
All around Europe we see this same pattern: far-right parties on the rise without any respect for the rule of law, societal norms, or common values. They lie, cheat, and yes, sometimes, break the law to beat their opponents and reach power.
In Romania, far-right candidate Călin Georgescu went from a complete nobody to a strong contender for the Presidency in just a matter of weeks, thanks to a Russian-run influence campaign on TikTok. Georgescu eventually won the first round of the election. Shortly after, the Romanian intelligence services revealed the Kremlin’s role in Georgescu’s unlikely rise. Ultimately, the election results were deemed null and void by the Constitutional Court, and Georgescu was barred from running again.
In Sweden, investigation program Kalla fakta revealed last year the existence of fake social media accounts used by the far-right party Sverigedemokraterna (SD). The goal? To artificially boost its online popularity and to attack other political parties and politicians. As bad as this sounds, things get worse: SD’s smear campaign was aimed at its own right-wing coalition partners, attempting to weaken the government from the inside. A far-right Trojan horse? Strange — Sweden’s wooden steeds are normally much smaller and painted red.
As far-right parties continue to sow doubts about our institutions, threaten our scientists, and divide us via overblown cultural issues, liberal democracies are struggling to respond. ‘Mainstream’ politicians, with their attention fixated on opinion polls and disoriented by the far-right’s populist methods, are unable to mount a coherent response to this very urgent threat. Even worse, some of them — mostly on the right — shamelessly abandon their own ideals to better cater to far-right voters. They are pathetic.
After twenty years of progressively co-opting far-right policies, the French party Les Républicains dramatically split last year. Its then-leader, Eric Ciotti, unilaterally decided on establishing an electoral alliance with Marine Le Pen without telling anyone else in his party. After a few eventful weeks of Ciotti refusing to give back the keys of the party’s HQ, he was eventually kicked out. But the damage was done: with a party lineage tracing back to Charles de Gaulle, Les Républicains would today be happy to exist past the next presidential election. They are pathetic.
Following the revelations of Kalla fakta, Sweden’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson — enraged by the scandal — put an end to his party’s collaboration with SD and its leader Jimmie Åkesson. The prime minister noted the gravity of the situation and… just kidding! Electoral calculations are more important than morality, and Kristersson knew that his government would fall without Åkesson’s support. Easier to be a doormat than a leader. Ulf Kristersson is pathetic.
Ebba Busch, leader of Sweden’s Kristdemokraterna, has spent the past few years chasing after SD’s voters by imitating (and sometimes going further right than) the charismatic Jimmie Åkesson. By renouncing both Christian and Democratic values, Busch hoped to bring electoral success to her party. As polls stand today, Swedish voters are signaling that they would rather send her home than back to Parliament. Ebba Busch is pathetic.
As liberal democracies send their weakest soldiers to the front, the international far-right movement stands in unity. Immediately after Georgescu was banned from running in Romania, he received strong support from some of the top athletes in the democratic backsliding Olympics: Poland’s Mateusz Morawiecki, Slovakia’s Robert Fico, and the Kremlin’s own Dmitri Peskov. When Marine Le Pen received her own electoral ban, Discount Despot Donald J. Trump rushed to his phone to defend her on his oxymoronically-named platform Truth Social. Wannabe authoritarians break the rules and, when called out on it, accuse us of being antidemocratic. The hypocrisy of it would be funny if the situation was not so dire.
Where do we go from here? I wish I had the answer. In 1945, philosopher Karl Popper described what he called the paradox of tolerance: for a society to be truly tolerant (of ideas, opinions, and thoughts), it must not tolerate intolerance. Ergo — for liberal democracies to thrive, we must be ready to fight back against illiberal ideas and autocratic tendencies. By the end of his life, Popper himself believed that intolerance was slowly winning the fight. If this is the case, does it mean that we should ban far-right parties outright? This can seem like a step too far. In any case, the least we can do is hold them accountable for the crimes they do commit.
Sorry Marine.
By Antoine Vincenot
May 6, 2025
