# Marine le Pen found guilty of embezzlement **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 31, 2025, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-le-pen-found-guilty-of-embezzlement/1016405 "2025-03-31T15:23:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-le-pen-found-guilty-of-embezzlement/1016405/1 "2025-03-31T15:23:11Z")
Well, hopefully it stands and her influence in France is kept to a minimum. A bit of good news. The article seemed to have changed as I created the post. > **[Marine Le Pen barred from running for public office for five years](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyq40yz70qo)** > > The far-right National Rally leader's sentence jeopardises her chances of running for president in 2027. ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-le-pen-found-guilty-of-embezzlement/1016405/2 "2025-03-31T15:47:36Z")
Great news, and full of delicious schadenfreude. I’m not a Europe expert, but my understanding is that these xenophobes like Le Pen and Nigel Farage ran for the European Parliament with the express purpose of hamstringing and undermining it, all the while complaining back home about how inefficient and useless it is. So it surprises me not one whit that Le Pen would misappropriate funds like this. I love that her downfall (assuming it stands) is coming at the hands of the institution she tried to undermine. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-le-pen-found-guilty-of-embezzlement/1016405/3 "2025-03-31T15:56:11Z")
France has a long tradition of making examples out of their national leaders, regardless of party or ideological leaning, when they’re caught breaking the law. There are many problems with French culture, but this is not one of them. The US could take a page here. ---
**Author:** ![survinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@survinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/survinga)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-le-pen-found-guilty-of-embezzlement/1016405/4 "2025-03-31T17:35:05Z")
We have actually had a lot of politicians serve time in prison over the decades. This changed with Trump. He should be in jail and 14th amendment’d out of serving as POTUS. But here we are. And with the SCOTUS ruling in 2024, lawless Presidents mostly can’t be prosecuted for anything if they claim it’s part of their “official duties”. That’s as bad a decision as I can ever remember out of our SCOTUS, with the possible exception of Dred Scott. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-le-pen-found-guilty-of-embezzlement/1016405/5 "2025-03-31T17:54:49Z")
As others have said, it’s nice to see the courts applying justice to those in power _someplace._ [A consensus had almost established itself across France’s political world that this ultimate sanction by the court could not, would not – in the end – take place.](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0ylgjew1xo) ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-le-pen-found-guilty-of-embezzlement/1016405/6 "2025-03-31T20:23:20Z")
Of on appeal the judgement stands, she might well be replaced as RN candidate by the seemingly personable (and young male) Jordan Bardella. Which may be the breakthrough the extreme right has been missing over the years > **[Jordan Bardella](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Bardella)** > > Jordan Bardella (.mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}French: \[ʒɔʁdan baʁdɛla\] ⓘ; born 13 September 1995) is a French politician who has been the president of the National Rally (RN) since 2022, after serving as acting president from September 2021 to November 2022 and as vice-president from 2019 to 2022. Bardella has also served as a ... Also worth noting that the seemingly more respectable right is facing its own embarrassment: > **[Nicolas Sarkozy trial: French prosecutors demand 7-year prison sentence for...](https://www.politico.eu/article/nicolas-sarkozy-trial-france-prosecution-prison-sentence-muammar-gaddafi/)** > > The former conservative leader is accused of taking millions of euros from Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to finance his 2007 election campaign. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-le-pen-found-guilty-of-embezzlement/1016405/7 "2025-03-31T20:31:16Z")
[![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1130/format:webp/1*Irqbz57ypBnuGTuqmbkBXw.jpeg) ](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1130/format:webp/1*Irqbz57ypBnuGTuqmbkBXw.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marine-le-pen-found-guilty-of-embezzlement/1016405/8 "2025-03-31T20:41:03Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > France has a long tradition of making examples out of their national leaders, regardless of party or ideological leaning, when they’re caught breaking the law. There are many problems with French culture, but this is not one of them. The US could take a page here. Yes. If the ideas of National Rally are so awesome (they aren’t), they can be championed by another headliner, one with sufficient respect or fear of the law. Either one works. In the US, the corrupt and corrupted Supreme Court decided that Republican Presidents don’t need to obey the law, but Democratic ones do. The decision had thal level of flexibility, and that level of unconstitutionality: the founding fathers considered giving Presidents immunity, then decided against it.