World News: Indictment or Opportunity For Marine Le Pen

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Category: World News - Europe

Published on Wednesday, 04 February 2026 11:27

Written by Olivier Longhi

Marine Le Pen's potential ineligibility for the 2027 presidential election offers the far-right party the usual elements of a rhetoric of victimization while tacitly allowing Jordan Bardella to impose himself as the only valid candidate in the presidential election.

The indictments brought by the attorneys general against Marine Le Pen during the appeal trial of parliamentary assistants, unduly employed and paid by the National Rally at the expense of the European Parliament, will undoubtedly serve the far-right party in its logic of conquest of supreme power.

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Accustomed to rhetorical exercises aimed at presenting the party as a victim of justice, it is very likely that the National Rally will once again use this discourse fuelled by victimization and conspiracy theories against it to push it into silence.

The mechanism, which has been running smoothly since the party's appearance on the political scene in the seventies, continues, relayed by the compulsive sphere that is very active on social networks, to flourish despite the reality of the facts tending to prove the guilt of the defendants, in this case Marine Le Pen.

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Republican Pact

However, it is worrying to note how, regardless of this discourse, the far-right party continues to attract activists and sympathizers who pay little attention to the facts but rather seduce by the personalities who embody the ideas defended by this party.

A characteristic feature of the political world today, the capital - sympathy exuded by an individual counts more than the ideas he defends, even if his ideas tend to break the republican and social pact that unites the nation. And the president of the National Rally took advantage of this growing trend in public opinion as well as the potential ineligibility of Marine Le Pen to advance his pawns with a view to 2027, falsely modest and devout towards the three-time presidential candidate.

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The calculation, which some would describe as Machiavellian, is in reality nothing more than simple opportunism, Jordan Bardella, since it is him, surfing on the decay of political thought, the legal troubles of Marine Le Pen and the reversal of the process of electing a candidate now based more on the latter's sympathy than on his program. A sign of the times and a possible definitive judicial conviction constitute for the man in a hurry of politics an alignment of the planets, not unprecedented, but which he will hasten to use to his advantage, burning the politeness of the former candidate.

Some would see it as a limitless cynicism, but politics is also built, rightly or wrongly, on unflattering human feelings, on base instincts that are condemned by all except those who know how to take advantage of them.  

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Bio: Olivier Longhi has extensive experience in European history. A seasoned journalist with fifteen years of experience, he is currently a professor of history and geography in the Toulouse region of France. He has held a variety of publishing positions, including Head of Agency and Chief of Publishing. A journalist and recognized blogger, editor, and editorial project manager, he has trained and managed editorial teams, worked as a journalist for various local radio stations, was a press and publishing consultant, and was a communications consultant.