This week a French court banned French far right leader Marine Le Pen from holding public office for five years and therefore preventing her candidature for the French Presidential Election in 2027 after finding her guilty of embezzling funds from the European Parliament on a “vast scale”.
She was also given a four-year jail sentence with two years suspended and two to be served outside prison with an electronic bracelet. She was also ordered to pay a fine of 100,000 Euro (£84,000). The verdict has led to predictable outcries from kindred Alt-Right voices like Elon Musk, Victor Orban and Geert Wilders complaining that it is an example of lawfare being waged by liberal or left wing elite judges who wish to prevent her would be Presidential Election victory and therefore the thwarting of the democratic process. It is a verdict that also drew criticism from radical, left figures such as the Greek economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis and Jean Luc Melenchon leader of La France Insoumise and former French Presidential contender who assert that judicial bodies should have no influence over elections. For defenders of increasingly besieged liberal democracy, the judgement is a welcome pushback against the global advance of the populist far right. But others fear a martyrdom effect Le Pen’s party at the polls.
Le Pen and 24 National Rally (NR) party members including nine former members of the European Parliament (EP) and their 12 parliamentary assistants were found guilty of a vast scheme known as the fake jobs system whereby over many years European Parliament funds were embezzled through the use of money earmarked for European parliament assistants to instead pay NR party workers in France. The swindle covered parliamentary assistant contracts between 2004 and 2016 and was unprecedented in scale and duration, causing losses of 4.5m Euros to European taxpayer funds. Assistants paid by the European Parliament must work directly on Strasbourg parliamentary matters, which the judges found had not happened. Le Pen will be able to retain her current post as a member of the French parliament but will not be able to run again as a parliamentary candidate for the duration of her ban for running for public office.[1]
Bang to rights then. A flagrant attempt to defraud a democratic parliamentary institution; one which Madame Le Pen has never disguised her contempt for but which she was happy to fleece to further her domestic political ambitions. At least Nigel Farage when leader of UKIP and the Brexit Party while milking the European Parliament’s expenses allocations for all their worth and making minimal contributions to EP business, never used this lucre to lubricate his domestic political operations. Where the US judiciary and other gatekeepers of democracy failed in their moral and constitutional responsibility to protect its institutions and guardrails from the depredations of another convicted felon and likely serial fraudster on an even more serious scale, one Donald J. Trump; the French courts have ruled that no legislator can be above the law; that one cannot seek to exercise ultimate power and authority while breaking the fundamental part of the contract between citizen and society – to respect and uphold laws which consensually apply to all in the body politic.
Le Pen and 24 National Rally (NR) party members including nine former members of the European Parliament (EP) and their 12 parliamentary assistants were found guilty of a vast scheme known as the fake jobs system whereby over many years European Parliament funds were embezzled through the use of money earmarked for European parliament assistants to instead pay NR party workers in France. The swindle covered parliamentary assistant contracts between 2004 and 2016 and was unprecedented in scale and duration, causing losses of 4.5m Euros to European taxpayer funds. Assistants paid by the European Parliament must work directly on Strasbourg parliamentary matters, which the judges found had not happened. Le Pen will be able to retain her current post as a member of the French parliament but will not be able to run again as a parliamentary candidate for the duration of her ban for running for public office.[1]
Bang to rights then. A flagrant attempt to defraud a democratic parliamentary institution; one which Madame Le Pen has never disguised her contempt for but which she was happy to fleece to further her domestic political ambitions. At least Nigel Farage when leader of UKIP and the Brexit Party while milking the European Parliament’s expenses allocations for all their worth and making minimal contributions to EP business, never used this lucre to lubricate his domestic political operations. Where the US judiciary and other gatekeepers of democracy failed in their moral and constitutional responsibility to protect its institutions and guardrails from the depredations of another convicted felon and likely serial fraudster on an even more serious scale, one Donald J. Trump; the French courts have ruled that no legislator can be above the law; that one cannot seek to exercise ultimate power and authority while breaking the fundamental part of the contract between citizen and society – to respect and uphold laws which consensually apply to all in the body politic.
The Brazilian courts have lived up to their guardianship role in the ipso facto prosecution of former President Jair de Bolisanario for his January 6th type coup attempt against Brazilian democracy after his defeat by Luis de Silva in the 2023 Presidential Election. The current trial of ex Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte at the ICC in The Hague for crimes against humanity relating to the mass killing of 30,000 people during his Presidency’s war on drugs shows that there should be no immunity for even democratically elected leaders for violations of basic norms of human behaviour in office. The appearance of Benjamin Netanyahu at The Hague to answer war crime indictments would send the same message. Another notable example of the exercise of judicial restraint on overweening executives or bad political actors was the UK Supreme Court’s striking down in 2019 of Boris Johnson’s attempt to prorogue Parliament in order to force through a no-deal Brexit.
The exercise of such judicial integrity and independence is a necessary antidote to the global spread of the Triple P virus (Populism, Polarisation and Post-Truth). The courage and risks taken by judges should not be underestimated in such febrile times as we live in today. Virulent threats and insults against the president of the court, Benedicte de Perthuis began on social media immediately after the announcement of the verdict and, menacingly, posts gave the judges full names and photographs and part of de Perthuis address leading to immediate condemnation by French legal bodies. The French Prime Minister, Francois Bayrou has assured the National Assembly of his “unconditional support” for the judges and has rejected the claims that the verdict was “partisan and political.”[2]
The conviction of Madame Le Pen triggered a round of predictable but no less preposterous indignation about the use of lawfare by leftist or liberal elites to thwart the authentic will of the people. In the US, Elon Musk, spear carrier for such “victimised, political prisoners” as anti-Muslim thug Tommy Robinson, said “When the radical left can’t win, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents… their standard playbook throughout the world.” Hungary’s leader Victor Orban proclaimed in best inverted, narcissistic, faux martyrdom woke fashionista style, “Je suis Marine.” In the Netherlands, the far-right Freedom Party (PVV) leader, Geert Wilders, expressed his shock “at the incredibly tough verdict.” Tom Van Grieken of Belgium’s Vlaams Belang called the decision “an attack on democracy,” while Santiago Abascal, the leader of Spain’s far-right Vox party posted “They will never succeed to silence the voice of the French people” According to Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right Legia Nord party, the decision was “a declaration of war by Brussels” and “a bad film that we are also seeing in other countries such as Romania” – a reference to a decision by the Romanian constitutional court earlier this year to bar the far-right presidential election frontrunner Calin Georgescu from a rerun of the vote in May after the initial result was annulled because of suspected Russian interference. But the prize for irony, a property that has apparently survived or being resuscitated after the award of the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger, goes to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov who opined that “more and more European capitals” were “trampling over democratic norms.” A lottery style win to anyone who can cite a free and fair election this century in Russia.[3]
Not to be outflanked on his right, the Fagash Fuhrer Nigel Farage, bleated on BBC news that:
The exercise of such judicial integrity and independence is a necessary antidote to the global spread of the Triple P virus (Populism, Polarisation and Post-Truth). The courage and risks taken by judges should not be underestimated in such febrile times as we live in today. Virulent threats and insults against the president of the court, Benedicte de Perthuis began on social media immediately after the announcement of the verdict and, menacingly, posts gave the judges full names and photographs and part of de Perthuis address leading to immediate condemnation by French legal bodies. The French Prime Minister, Francois Bayrou has assured the National Assembly of his “unconditional support” for the judges and has rejected the claims that the verdict was “partisan and political.”[2]
The conviction of Madame Le Pen triggered a round of predictable but no less preposterous indignation about the use of lawfare by leftist or liberal elites to thwart the authentic will of the people. In the US, Elon Musk, spear carrier for such “victimised, political prisoners” as anti-Muslim thug Tommy Robinson, said “When the radical left can’t win, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents… their standard playbook throughout the world.” Hungary’s leader Victor Orban proclaimed in best inverted, narcissistic, faux martyrdom woke fashionista style, “Je suis Marine.” In the Netherlands, the far-right Freedom Party (PVV) leader, Geert Wilders, expressed his shock “at the incredibly tough verdict.” Tom Van Grieken of Belgium’s Vlaams Belang called the decision “an attack on democracy,” while Santiago Abascal, the leader of Spain’s far-right Vox party posted “They will never succeed to silence the voice of the French people” According to Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right Legia Nord party, the decision was “a declaration of war by Brussels” and “a bad film that we are also seeing in other countries such as Romania” – a reference to a decision by the Romanian constitutional court earlier this year to bar the far-right presidential election frontrunner Calin Georgescu from a rerun of the vote in May after the initial result was annulled because of suspected Russian interference. But the prize for irony, a property that has apparently survived or being resuscitated after the award of the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger, goes to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov who opined that “more and more European capitals” were “trampling over democratic norms.” A lottery style win to anyone who can cite a free and fair election this century in Russia.[3]
Not to be outflanked on his right, the Fagash Fuhrer Nigel Farage, bleated on BBC news that:
In France, they cancelled a candidate. A candidate that would without doubt, have won the next French presidential election. And you know what, it looks to me like a very trumped-up charge[4]
As already explained, the legality of the judgement is unassailable, not least because the judge had stated that Le Pen was “at the heart” of the fraud with the court hearing that one party worker – supposedly a parliamentary assistant for four months – had emailed her to say “I’d like to see the European parliament and that would also allow me to meet the MEP I’m attached to.”. Neither is it “without doubt” that Le Pen would have been the victor in the 2027 French presidential election as current polling shows her tied or within of error in a run-off against three potential candidates, Gabriel Attal, Edouard Philippe and Francois Ruffin.[5] Note Farage’s use of the third person plural (or “they”) to describe the supposedly inscrutable and unknowable forces behind this supposedly vindictive judgement. It is a common linguistic device used by populists to attribute all sorts of malevolent power to shadowy elites, cabals or formations be it the Deep State, the liberal establishment, the World Economic Forum, George Soros, the mainstream media, or the various manifestations of the international Jewish/Zionist conspiracy.
Similar linguistic weapons and tropes have been marshalled in the sexual assault trial of the French cinematic colossus Gerard Depardieu by his lawyer Jeremie Assous. Throughout the trial, Assous persistently took aim at the prosecution counsel, dismissing them “as activists more than lawyers” and attacked their claims that questioning the plaintiffs’ testimony was an act of aggression; using words like “abject,” “vile” and “stupid” to describe one of the counsels. In his closing arguments, he laid into the #MeToo movement, describing it as an aggressive feminist campaign and accused the plaintiffs and their lawyers of being part of a larger “organisation” of “angry feminists” who sought to bring down powerful men. Laced with performative misogyny such as his reference to Charlotte Arnould, the actress who had accused Depardieu of raping her in 2018 when aged just 22 and who only attended the proceedings as a silent observer (her case is currently under investigation), as a “pathological liar” and querying “… Do you know many rape victims who show up every day to see their rapist?”, Assoud went into full conspiracy theory mode. He likened the treatment of Depardieu to Robespierre’s Terror during the French Revolution, asserting that the justice system had become part of a mass ideological purge. In remarks to the media, Assoud continued to portray himself as the defender of a man persecuted by an oppressive, politically motivated system, with Depardieu was now a victim like the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who died in Russian custody and he as Navalny’s lawyer.[6]
That latter comparison contains no little irony not to mention obscenity because of both the defendant’s and his counsel’s long careers of subservience to Russian geo-political interests. Now a 76-year-old Russian citizen, Depardieu has long been obsequiously loyal to his dictatorial patrons, Vladimir Putin, and Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus and as well as being pally with the brutal Russian general and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Assoud has defended Russia Today (RT) in French court cases and has been described as a prominent spreader of Russian disinformation in France.[7] The sickening conduct of the defence in Depardieu’s trial can be seen as the blueprint for that attack dogs of the contemporary Alt-Right; the creation of false persecutory narratives in which dominant groups, be they powerful men or white people, become victims of oppressively “woke” justice systems, be it Depardieu at the hands of angry feminists or young or even middle aged men in Britain’s allegedly “two-tier” justice system in the aftermath of last summer’s anti-migrant riots. The Elon Musks, JD Vances, Le Pens, Orbans, Farages etc all sing from the same songbook as Jeremie Assous; the Deep State wishes to thwart the election of anti-establishment candidates; Europe is experiencing a “free speech” crisis in which anti=abortionists, opponents of mass immigration, gender ideology and critical race theory are afraid to put their heads above the parapet for fear of arrest and imprisonment by the thought police. They portray themselves as the plucky “little people” standing up to the dictates of woke orthodoxy and the secret tyrannical Great Reset agendas of the WEF, WHO and public health leaders such as Anthony Fauci. It does not take long however for the loose fitting masks (not the Covid 19 variety!) to slip to reveal their real concerns and agendas; articulation of the Great Replacement Theory and reversal of its baleful effects through the creation of Christian nationalist theocratic commonwealths jointly sponsored by Putin and a post-Putin Russia and a Trumpian and post-Trumpian USA and undergirded by the surveillance architecture of Big Tech. That is why any reverse for the Alt-Right be it in the courtroom, ballot box or international summit such as Le Pen’s current travails has to be welcomed.
On the radical left Yanis Varoufakis warned that “only France’s neofascists will benefit” from the dive “headlong into a totalitarian pit” by a panicking illiberal establishment across the west”.[8] While this comment can legitimately be seen as a full circling of the horseshoe bend in politics (the convergence of far right and far left populist anti-politics) and while there is an important debate to be had about to what extent modern far right parties like National Rally differ from old-style fascism bearing in mind Madame Le Pen’s determination to detoxify her party’s brand from that of her late father’s National Front, Varoufakis does raise a realistic scenario about the possible boost that the verdict could give National Rally regardless of whether Marine Le Pen makes a fourth bid for the Presidency in two years’ time in the way that Trump’s felony conviction helped to propel him back into the White House. The guilty verdict will serve her victimisation narrative that there is an elite out to thwart her party and end her career.
Similar linguistic weapons and tropes have been marshalled in the sexual assault trial of the French cinematic colossus Gerard Depardieu by his lawyer Jeremie Assous. Throughout the trial, Assous persistently took aim at the prosecution counsel, dismissing them “as activists more than lawyers” and attacked their claims that questioning the plaintiffs’ testimony was an act of aggression; using words like “abject,” “vile” and “stupid” to describe one of the counsels. In his closing arguments, he laid into the #MeToo movement, describing it as an aggressive feminist campaign and accused the plaintiffs and their lawyers of being part of a larger “organisation” of “angry feminists” who sought to bring down powerful men. Laced with performative misogyny such as his reference to Charlotte Arnould, the actress who had accused Depardieu of raping her in 2018 when aged just 22 and who only attended the proceedings as a silent observer (her case is currently under investigation), as a “pathological liar” and querying “… Do you know many rape victims who show up every day to see their rapist?”, Assoud went into full conspiracy theory mode. He likened the treatment of Depardieu to Robespierre’s Terror during the French Revolution, asserting that the justice system had become part of a mass ideological purge. In remarks to the media, Assoud continued to portray himself as the defender of a man persecuted by an oppressive, politically motivated system, with Depardieu was now a victim like the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who died in Russian custody and he as Navalny’s lawyer.[6]
That latter comparison contains no little irony not to mention obscenity because of both the defendant’s and his counsel’s long careers of subservience to Russian geo-political interests. Now a 76-year-old Russian citizen, Depardieu has long been obsequiously loyal to his dictatorial patrons, Vladimir Putin, and Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus and as well as being pally with the brutal Russian general and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Assoud has defended Russia Today (RT) in French court cases and has been described as a prominent spreader of Russian disinformation in France.[7] The sickening conduct of the defence in Depardieu’s trial can be seen as the blueprint for that attack dogs of the contemporary Alt-Right; the creation of false persecutory narratives in which dominant groups, be they powerful men or white people, become victims of oppressively “woke” justice systems, be it Depardieu at the hands of angry feminists or young or even middle aged men in Britain’s allegedly “two-tier” justice system in the aftermath of last summer’s anti-migrant riots. The Elon Musks, JD Vances, Le Pens, Orbans, Farages etc all sing from the same songbook as Jeremie Assous; the Deep State wishes to thwart the election of anti-establishment candidates; Europe is experiencing a “free speech” crisis in which anti=abortionists, opponents of mass immigration, gender ideology and critical race theory are afraid to put their heads above the parapet for fear of arrest and imprisonment by the thought police. They portray themselves as the plucky “little people” standing up to the dictates of woke orthodoxy and the secret tyrannical Great Reset agendas of the WEF, WHO and public health leaders such as Anthony Fauci. It does not take long however for the loose fitting masks (not the Covid 19 variety!) to slip to reveal their real concerns and agendas; articulation of the Great Replacement Theory and reversal of its baleful effects through the creation of Christian nationalist theocratic commonwealths jointly sponsored by Putin and a post-Putin Russia and a Trumpian and post-Trumpian USA and undergirded by the surveillance architecture of Big Tech. That is why any reverse for the Alt-Right be it in the courtroom, ballot box or international summit such as Le Pen’s current travails has to be welcomed.
On the radical left Yanis Varoufakis warned that “only France’s neofascists will benefit” from the dive “headlong into a totalitarian pit” by a panicking illiberal establishment across the west”.[8] While this comment can legitimately be seen as a full circling of the horseshoe bend in politics (the convergence of far right and far left populist anti-politics) and while there is an important debate to be had about to what extent modern far right parties like National Rally differ from old-style fascism bearing in mind Madame Le Pen’s determination to detoxify her party’s brand from that of her late father’s National Front, Varoufakis does raise a realistic scenario about the possible boost that the verdict could give National Rally regardless of whether Marine Le Pen makes a fourth bid for the Presidency in two years’ time in the way that Trump’s felony conviction helped to propel him back into the White House. The guilty verdict will serve her victimisation narrative that there is an elite out to thwart her party and end her career.
The second election of Trump is partial proof of the cult-like nature of support for authoritarian populist leaders. One of Le Pen’s central messages is that she is an anti-corruption figure in a country where prominent establishment personages - like former Presidents Nicholas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac and former Prime Minister Francois Filon - have been convicted of corruption and misuse of public funds and their once mighty Republican Party now fails to cross the 5% voting threshold of eligibility for election candidacy. In the eyes of her party faithful, she may not have been convicted of lining her own pickets but to the wider French electorate she and her party stand convicted of illegally diverting party funds from designated use. Her anti-corruption image should thus be irredeemably damaged. The record of the French courts in holding establishment figures like Chirac and Sarkozy to account for corruption surely gives the lie to claims that the courts are out to “get” radical political figures.
The disqualification from Marine Le Pen from public office and from another tilt at the French Presidency is significant and heartening at deeper levels. Throughout the period of the embezzlement, Rassemblement National/National Rally was heavily in debt to a Kremlin-connected Russian bank. Would the party have been able to disavow suspicious links to Putin’s inner circle without the misappropriated funds? Would it have been as competitive in the elections it contested without the unfair advantage of these illicit finances?[9]
As for those on the left like Jean-Luc Melenchon who proclaim that the “impeachment” of a politician should be “left up to the people”, the rest of the French left, the Communists, Greens and Socialists, have upheld in no uncertain terms the importance of the rule of law and judicial independence. While it is a definite unknown if the US justice system had not completely failed at protecting the rule of law against the attempted coup on 6th January, we know the actual factual of the consequences of not acting: the fastening erosion of democratic norms and practices since the return to office of the chief coup conspirator and his band of far right insurgents; the undermining of the rule of law and the hollowing out of state capacity the creation of a parallel system of prerogative and privilege from proximity to political power[10]; the arbitrary violations of the Constitution to deport visitors to the US with a legitimate right to be there for exercising freedom of expression on Gaza and the policies of the Trump administration. The resilience and backbone shown by the French judiciary (and their British counterparts) over Le Pen embezzlement case gives one confidence over the strength and efficacy of the guardrails of French democracy.
The verdict forces the far right to face its own contradictions. National Rally and its kindred nationalist rail about corrupt elites and claim that immigrants are stealing benefits. Yet here they are convicted of stealing public money. It is on this terrain that democrats can defeat NR; commitment to probity in public life and genuine patriotism as opposed to NR’s subservience to Trump and Putin. By getting the backs of reactionary right-wing forces across borders, they present defenders of liberal democracy the ideal playbook – pan solidarity between progressives and democrats headed up by a type of “anti-Trump” like Mark Carney, Canadian PM.[11]
Vive La France! Vive la Democracie!
[1] Angelique Chrisafis Furious Le Pen rails against ban on running for French presidency. The Guardian 1st April p.1, p.4
[2] Kim Willsher Threats to French judges in Le Pen condemned by ministers as ‘unacceptable’. The Guardian 2nd April 2025 p.24
[3] Jon Henley ‘Je suis Marine’ Populists ‘shocked’ by court ruling. The Guardian 1st April 2025 p.5
[4]“Rats in a Sack. LIE of the WEEK.” The New European 3rd April 2025
[5] Ibid
[6] Emma-Kate Symons Red Card. Gerard Depardieu’s sexual assault trial was a ‘hellish nightmare that speaks volumes about him – and how alleged victims can be treated in French courts. The New European 3rd April 2025 pp.29-30
[7] Ibid
[8] Henley, op cit
[9] Alexander Hurst, It takes courage to beat the far right. France has shown that. Guardian Opinion, 1st April 2025 p.3
[10] Ibid
[11] Ibid
The disqualification from Marine Le Pen from public office and from another tilt at the French Presidency is significant and heartening at deeper levels. Throughout the period of the embezzlement, Rassemblement National/National Rally was heavily in debt to a Kremlin-connected Russian bank. Would the party have been able to disavow suspicious links to Putin’s inner circle without the misappropriated funds? Would it have been as competitive in the elections it contested without the unfair advantage of these illicit finances?[9]
As for those on the left like Jean-Luc Melenchon who proclaim that the “impeachment” of a politician should be “left up to the people”, the rest of the French left, the Communists, Greens and Socialists, have upheld in no uncertain terms the importance of the rule of law and judicial independence. While it is a definite unknown if the US justice system had not completely failed at protecting the rule of law against the attempted coup on 6th January, we know the actual factual of the consequences of not acting: the fastening erosion of democratic norms and practices since the return to office of the chief coup conspirator and his band of far right insurgents; the undermining of the rule of law and the hollowing out of state capacity the creation of a parallel system of prerogative and privilege from proximity to political power[10]; the arbitrary violations of the Constitution to deport visitors to the US with a legitimate right to be there for exercising freedom of expression on Gaza and the policies of the Trump administration. The resilience and backbone shown by the French judiciary (and their British counterparts) over Le Pen embezzlement case gives one confidence over the strength and efficacy of the guardrails of French democracy.
The verdict forces the far right to face its own contradictions. National Rally and its kindred nationalist rail about corrupt elites and claim that immigrants are stealing benefits. Yet here they are convicted of stealing public money. It is on this terrain that democrats can defeat NR; commitment to probity in public life and genuine patriotism as opposed to NR’s subservience to Trump and Putin. By getting the backs of reactionary right-wing forces across borders, they present defenders of liberal democracy the ideal playbook – pan solidarity between progressives and democrats headed up by a type of “anti-Trump” like Mark Carney, Canadian PM.[11]
Vive La France! Vive la Democracie!
[1] Angelique Chrisafis Furious Le Pen rails against ban on running for French presidency. The Guardian 1st April p.1, p.4
[2] Kim Willsher Threats to French judges in Le Pen condemned by ministers as ‘unacceptable’. The Guardian 2nd April 2025 p.24
[3] Jon Henley ‘Je suis Marine’ Populists ‘shocked’ by court ruling. The Guardian 1st April 2025 p.5
[4]“Rats in a Sack. LIE of the WEEK.” The New European 3rd April 2025
[5] Ibid
[6] Emma-Kate Symons Red Card. Gerard Depardieu’s sexual assault trial was a ‘hellish nightmare that speaks volumes about him – and how alleged victims can be treated in French courts. The New European 3rd April 2025 pp.29-30
[7] Ibid
[8] Henley, op cit
[9] Alexander Hurst, It takes courage to beat the far right. France has shown that. Guardian Opinion, 1st April 2025 p.3
[10] Ibid
[11] Ibid
⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.
Barry - another well presented piece.
ReplyDeleteShe was up to her neck in it. The courts would have been remiss to find her innocent.
Her French supporters are understandably aggrieved that their woman will not get to make the cut for the Presidential election. I'm not sure what other outcome there could have been.
I think SF faced similar allegations in the North in the past year.
While deeply suspicious of capitalism democracy it is better than no democracy.
I think critics of Woke like myself need to be more specific about what it is we are opposed to. Woke concepts such as inclusivity, anti-discrimination, ensuring respect for rights are all things people on the Left are drawn to. The Woke evangelicals are more of a problem that Woke itself. They fashion Wokeology out of Woke ideas and end up behaving like their cultic counterparts in Scientology, discriminating against and cancelling those who don't share their opinions. If Woke has a future it has to be protected from Woketards.
Anthony - I was thinking of Sinn Fein as well and thought of making a reference to them in my piece but did not have the details to hand so didn't put in it. Would not put it past them bearing in mind their record as serial vote stealers. You are so right to distinguish woke from woke evangelicals; I am afraid that groups like Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil are susceptible to woke fundamentalism.
DeleteBarry - if I recall SF's was not as bad as Le Pen's but in the same category - paying people for party work out of money allocated for government work.
DeleteThere is an interesting contrast of positions between people on the left about Woke. Susan Neiman, for example, argues that Left is not Woke, whereas AC Grayling takes a different approach, suggesting that the Left has to include Woke. I tend to see Woke as more liberal than Left and tend to side with Neiman given her view on the manner in which Woke seeks to use cancel culture to suppress freedom of inquiry. That would be my biggest criticism of Woke. At the same time Grayling thinks cancel culture is dangerous. If a man believes he is a woman he has a right to that belief. He has no right to demand that everybody else believes he is a woman and seek to cancel them and discriminate against them if they don't share his view.
Susan Neiman, for example, argues that Left is not Woke, whereas AC Grayling takes a different approach, suggesting that the Left has to include Woke. I tend to see Woke as more liberal than Left and tend to side with Neiman given her view on the manner in which Woke seeks to use cancel culture to suppress freedom of inquiry.
ReplyDeleteSo, 'liberal-lefties' or 'left-leaning liberals' who are in favour of cancel culture, suppression of free thought and speech are woke?
That would limit the definition of Woke too much.
DeleteThe element of Woke that favours the fascistic/Stalinist route of thought control, censorship and cancel culture are probably usefully described as woke evangelicals.
Woke ideas can be very progressive - I'm thinking in particular of diversity, inclusiveness, equality, the type of things Trump has banned. These concepts need protected from the Stalinist/Fascistic types among the Woke who preach but do not practice them. They work to suffocate diversity of opinion, they don't want the ideas they don't approve included in public discourse and they deny equality to those not holding the same views as themselves.