BETWEEN 2004 and 2016, Marine Le Pen was at the heart of a scheme that diverted European Union funds to pay her party’s political staff, falsely claiming that they were working as assistants to its deputies in the European Parliament. Thus ruled a Paris court on March 31st, sentencing Ms Le Pen and 23 other officials of her hard-right National Rally (RN) party to a mix of fines, prison terms and bans from campaigning. The decision has landed in French politics like a bomb, owing to one aspect of Ms Le Pen’s sentence: she is barred for five years from running for office, with immediate effect. That would include the presidential election in 2027, in which she is the front-runner.
