Search
AI-powered search, human-powered content.
scroll to top arrow or icon

{{ subpage.title }}

- YouTube

Will Marine Le Pen's conviction really keep her out of French politics?

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your week. Turning to France where Marine Le Pen, who has long been the leader of the National Front, now renamed National Rally Party, and principal contender her party to win French elections in 2027, which would be an absolute turning point in French elections, as meaningful for France as Trump's second win in 2024 in the United States, has been found guilty in a criminal court in France of embezzlement charges up to $500,000 directly and millions of dollars in terms of mishandling the way European funds were being used for staffers, including her sister and her best friend and a bodyguard. Not a political case at all, actually just a criminal court. Nobody arguing that the judge is particularly politicized here. And while two of the years of the jail term's suspended, the first two years, she has to wear an ankle bracelet. So we'll probably get a video of that real soon. I'm sure it'll be fashionable, since it's France.

Read moreShow less

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, member of parliament of the Rassemblement National party, leaves the courthouse on the day of the verdict of her trial alongside 24 other defendants over accusations of misappropriation of European Union funds, in Paris, France, on March 31, 2025.

REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq

Le Pen barred from running from office after embezzlement conviction

Oh là là! A French court on Monday found National Rally leader Marine Le Pen guilty of misappropriating European funds to her far-right party, and barred the three-time presidential candidate barred from running for office for the next five years. Le Pen has denied wrongdoing and said last November, “It’s my political death that’s being demanded.”

Read moreShow less

France National Front presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen addresses a political rally in Lille on Feb. 25, 2007.

REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

Father of the French far right dies

Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose ultranationalist and conservative views enraged millions but also shaped the contemporary French political scene, died on Tuesday at 96.

Le Pen was a far-right fixture of French politics for nearly five decades as a legislator in the French and European parliaments, and as founder and leader of the National Front party, which he founded in the early 1970s.

Read moreShow less

French Prime Minister Michel Barnier leaves following the weekly cabinet meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, on Nov. 27, 2024.

REUTERS/Stephane Mahe

French government barrels toward a brick wall

In France, political push came to shove on Monday, as Prime Minister Michel Barnier moved to ram a controversial pensions finance reform bill through the Assemblée Nationale, France’s lower (but more powerful) house of parliament. To do this, he relied on Article 49.3, a constitutional provision that allows a prime minister to advance legislation without a vote in parliament.
Read moreShow less

A 'coal is dead' placard is seen during the demonstration. Activists from Friends Of The Earth and other environmental groups gathered outside the Royal Courts of Justice as the legal challenge to the Whitehaven coal mine in Cumbria begins.

Vuk Valcic / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect

Hard Numbers: UK buries coal, Austria’s far right surges, Le Pen faces trial, UN extends but doesn’t expand Haiti mission, Russia spends more on guns (less on butter)

142: After 142 years, the UK government closed the country’s last coal-fired power plant on Monday night. Coal power was a critical factor in the British-born Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, but it wasn’t until 1882 that the British opened the first public coal power plant. The closure is part of the government’s plan to generate 100% of Great Britain’s energy from renewable sources by 2030. Our favorite British coal story? How coal pollution changed the color of the Peppered Moths of Manchester.

Read moreShow less

French political leaders

Jess Frampton

Macron has put France’s fate in Le Pen’s hands

President Emmanuel Macron’s appointment of Michel Barnier as France’s new prime minister on Sept. 5 has put an end to two months of political deadlock and disarray triggered by the Jul. 7 parliamentary election result. But with the far right’s Marine Le Pen having emerged as kingmaker in a deeply fractured parliament, the respite for Macron, Barnier, and France could prove short-lived – and costly.

Since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958, France has had majority governments aligned with the president, majority governments opposed to the president (“cohabitations”), and – in the last two years – minority governments that have struggled to enact the president’s legislative agenda but have nonetheless had enough support in parliament to evade censure.

Read moreShow less

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks with then-EU Chief Brexit Negotiator Michel Barnier in February 2019.

Michel Euler/Pool via Reuters

France’s new PM: Barnier gets the job, but Le Pen holds the cards

France’s President Emmanuel Macron has tapped a political veteran and experienced policymaker to take on the increasingly tough job of prime minister.Michel Barnier is best known outside France as the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator. He’s held other senior positions in both France and the EU. Barnier, 73, will be the Fifth Republic’s oldest prime minister, and he replaces Gabriel Attal, the youngest.
Read moreShow less

Marine Le Pen, French far-right leader and far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally - RN) party candidate, reacts on stage after partial results in the first round of the early French parliamentary elections in Henin-Beaumont, France, June 30, 2024.

REUTERS/Yves Herman

Can Le Pen rewrite French politics next week?

Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party, aka RN, topped the first round of voting on Sunday, winning about a third of the French vote – the best showing in the party’s half-century history. But in next Sunday’s round two, will she be able to win a majority?

Non: Macron’s Ensemble party, which placed third with about 20%, is hobbled, but the left and center right are also closing ranks against Le Pen. In hundreds of races, they’re withdrawing third-place candidates to consolidate direct challenges to RN. Respected pollsters predict about 270 seats for Le Pen, 19 shy of a majority.

Read moreShow less

Subscribe to our free newsletter, GZERO Daily

Latest