By Paul Craig Roberts
PaulCraigRoberts.org
January 16, 2026
In a democracy, the government in office cannot ban an opposing candidate from running on the grounds that the candidate would win and take the place of the current government. But that is what President Macron has done to Marine Le Pen. Le Pen heads the largest political party in France. She has been banned by a French court from holding office for five years. This prevents her from competing in the 2027 presidential election, where she has long been considered to be the leading candidate.
The excuse used by the French government to frustrate the popular will is that Le Pen was convicted of "misappropriating EU funds." She was convicted of using money intended for her European Union staff for her French staff. Money, of course, is fungible, and the orchestrated charge succeeded only because the establishment presstitutes hyped it over and over.
Marine Le Pen is a controversial figure with the French establishment because she represents ethnic French nationalism, not the globalism of open borders and multiculturalism, that is, she stands for France, not for a Tower of Babel.
All over Europe the left-wing ideologues have succeeded in associating ethnic nationalism with Nazism. An effort has been underway for decades to destroy the sovereignty of national states, and to merge them into the European Union. Le Pen has fought the effort to abolish France, and for her efforts she has been branded a Nazi. Despite the French establishment's attempt to demonize her, her party has the largest public support.
Over the years, the European left succeeded in branding national sovereignty "right-wing." Even the Russian news site RT unthinkingly uses the propaganda term of the European left, thus demonstrating how unaware the Russian media is of the character of their European enemies.
When Le Pen appealed the ruling at the European court of human rights the court side-stepped the issue by ruling that she had not shown an "imminent risk of irreparable harm" to herself. Of course, the harm was done to French democracy and to the French electorate, an issue that the court avoided.
Clearly "European democracy" stands unified in opposing democracy and has prevented the French people from exercising their will in a presidential election by banning the opposing candidate from running for the presidency.
Le Pen has again appealed and declared "I hope I will be able to convince the judges of my innocence." But for the establishment, the question is not one of innocence or guilt. The the issue is that the European elite intend to prevent any revival of national sovereignty. The people's will is no longer tolerated in Western Europe.