Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right populist National Rally in France, has been given a four-year prison sentence – two with an electronic bracelet and two suspended – and a five-year ban from standing in elections. Eight other National Rally MEPs, including vice-president Louis Aliot, were also convicted of embezzling €4.1 million of public funds, having overseen “the European parliament taking on people who were in reality working for the party”.
That the National Rally party (RN) has long used public money to support its party is nothing new. Numerous cases have already resulted in convictions involving them. Le Pen’s conviction, however, is a first. The exposure of their shenanigans can only be welcomed. But these convictions do not eliminate the National Rally from the political scene.
What is at question is the political consequences of these convictions. Nothing is less sure than that this sidelining of Le Pen will hold. She has secured a speedy appeal hearing for the summer of 2026, before the presidential election. But the prospect that neither she, nor Macron, will be able to stand, reshuffles the cards for the bourgeois parties – Renaissance, Les Républicains, the RN, and the French Socialist Party.
The RN has, of course, been shaken by the convictions of its leaders and the €2 million fine it has to pay. The party’s finances have always been highly volatile and dependent on state subsidies to political parties and on loans. Capitalists such as the cement company owner Lambert and the founder of the perfume chain Marionnaud have financed the RN. Recent electoral successes have brought them money. Their public subsidy is expected to be around €20 million this year, a quadrupling since 2022. But their financial instability reveals the nature of this party: an organisation without a real activist base, with the rich, careerists and upstarts at the helm. And when some leave, they take part of the coffers with them.
They present themselves as victims of the system and are naturally contesting the sentences. Their call to demonstrate on Sunday April 6, to denounce the conviction of the RN and its leader, was a failure in terms of mobilisation, with a limited turnout. However, on a broad scale, a large proportion of RN voters, according to polls, say that they will vote for the party again.
It is clear that judicial convictions will not stop a section of the working class from voting for the RN. Also, the RN is a useful opponent for president Emanuelle Macron and the right. Prime minister François Bayrou, who lacks a majority in the national assembly, regularly relies on the RN to enable the passing of his anti-social laws against workers, his austerity budget against public services, and, of course, his racist laws.
Faced with the RN playing the victim, a significant number of young people and activists want to take to the streets. Youth organisations, the left-wing France Insoumise, and EELV (Greens), called for a counter-rally in Paris on 6 April.
Gauche Révolutionnaire, CWI in France, is also campaigning for the call for a massive mobilisation in the streets, because that is where the real balance of power is determined. Only a mass mobilisation of young people united alongside workers will be effective in pushing back the RN, with a clear call to fight against the destruction of our rights, against the dismantling of public services, for real wages, and real housing for all. It’s all this racist, discriminatory, capitalist-serving policy that’s paving the way for the RN.
Some mobilisations were called in certain cities, including Paris, on April 12 in the name of defending the ‘rule of law’. These mobilisations are being echoed by the Socialist Party and other forces. They claim to be fighting the RN but are pursuing policies similar to Macron’s, precisely those that enable the advancement of the far right. Gauche Révolutionnaire wants to engage with all those who want to defeat the RN and fight against the policies that allow them to gain electoral ground. We will attend these rallies wherever they take place, but we will not join the call in the name of defending the ‘rule of law’.
What is meant by the rule of law? That which continually attacks union, political, or community activists? Which responds to all protests with police repression? Which allows the destruction of all public services? It’s especially not serious that the CGT trade union has signed this appeal. The French state ultimately serves the capitalist class. Workers’ rights at work, democratic rights, the right to vote, freedom of speech, have been won through mass struggles since the French revolution. But they are challenged whenever possible by increasingly authoritarian governments serving capitalist interests.
It’s only when it’s in their interests, when the power of the capitalists is threatened, that they use the argument of ‘defending democracy’ to try to make us believe that they and we have common values and interests. They use it for their own interests, not those of workers and young people.
The dynamic anti-racist and anti-sexist mobilisations which took place in March demonstrated the potential, including among young people, for massive mobilisations, as divisive capitalist policies meet with so much disgust. Labour movement organisations, particularly unions like the CGT, should spearhead this kind of mobilisation rather than signing an appeal like the one on April 12, which claims to mobilise against the RN solely on moral grounds. Fighting the RN’s policies also means fighting Macron’s policies, which fundamentally defend the same interests and serve as a springboard for the far right. One cannot go without the other.
A programme of fighting opposition should include preparing now for the May 1 mobilisation against Macron and the RN – against racism and all forms of discrimination, and against war. For real jobs, real wages, and decent and affordable housing for all. And for an actual date for a militant inter-professional strike in May, preparing for three consecutive days of strikes against Macron, Bayrou, and the capitalists.
Gauche Révolutionnaire, CWI France
Currently, the vast majority of capitalist parties and trade unions in France rely on public funding and subsidies for their finances. Instead, organisations and parties of youth and workers should aim for political independence, for the ability to produce whatever material they want, whenever they want, accountable to no one other than their own activists. This implies that the finances of workers’ organisations must not depend on state subsidies or any external funding.
We fight for elected officials to be paid the average wage of a skilled worker and for elected officials to give the sums they receive surplus to that to support workers’ struggles, in a public manner. We support the right to recall elected officials, who must be regularly held to account for their positions — and not just every five or six years.
