Marine Le Pen Lawfared

 

Popular French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has been found guilty of embezzlement by a national court and banned from political life for a period up to and including the country's 2027 presidential elections. Le Pen was also hit with a two year suspended jail sentence and a further two years house arrest, she will appeal the verdict.

Marine Le Pen joins a growing list of lawfared political figures, such as Bolsonaro in Brazil, Imran Khan in Pakistan, Calin Georgescu in Romania and Donald Trump here in the US. Elon Musk weighed in on social media, "When the radical left can’t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents. This is their standard playbook throughout the world." Italy's deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini went further, blasting the court's decision as "a declaration of war from Brussels."

Keen-eyed readers of this inconsequential taco stand on the Information Super Highway might remember a time when Europe and the Free World prided itself on free elections, a free press and an independent judiciary. Now? Not so much. Why, then, should the US under its current leadership spend a single cent on the defense of countries which are at best against our values.

Defense aside, maybe tariffs and increasingly surging nationalism will bring Rainbow Fortress Europa to something resembling sense.

Marseillaise,

LSP