Maire Le Pen’s National Rally party received the most votes in France’s recent elections and is the largest party in the National Assembly. Tomorrow, the judicial system is going to reach a verdict in a prosecution that seeks a criminal conviction and a five-year ban on running for office. Enormously important moment for both the courts and for politics in France.

This is from a paywalled article in the WSJ:

When judges reach a verdict in the embezzlement trial of Marine Le Pen on Monday, the fate of a politician with gravitational pull on France’s political system will be hanging in the balance.

Prosecutors are seeking a five-year prison sentence and a five-year ban from running for public office for Le Pen, a penalty that would exclude her from the next presidential race and thrust her party, National Rally, into limbo.

The question looming over France is whether the Paris tribunal—regardless of the underlying facts of the case against Le Pen—should deliver a ruling that shakes the country’s political order to its core.

“It’s my political death that’s being demanded,” Le Pen said in an interview on national TV, describing the proposed ban as “a very violent attack on democracy.”

For more than a decade Le Pen has been a mainstay presidential candidate. Her anti-immigration rhetoric has found growing support in France, positioning her as a front-runner for the presidential elections in 2027 when President Emmanuel Macron will reach his limit of two consecutive terms. 

The idea of a court decision eliminating Le Pen from contention has triggered a national debate over the reach of France’s fiercely independent judiciary branch. French prosecutors say no one, no matter their political status, should be above the law. But some of the country’s most prominent politicians, including avowed opponents of Le Pen, worry that a ban would sow distrust in the judicial system at a time when the institutions of France’s modern republic are increasingly fragile.