Liberté, egalité, hypocrisie by Sabine Fischer

There is a peculiar skill the French political elite seems to have mastered over the decades. Not in diplomacy, not in reform, not even in winning wars. No, it is in the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of moral high ground, and worse handing it over, on a silver Marianne-plated platter, to the very figures democracy should resist.

In the case of Marine Le Pen, French justice was right, politics were wrong and voilà! The blueprint for making a modern martyr was printed, bound, and shelved in the Louvre of political self-sabotage.

Now, let’s not romanticize. Marine Le Pen is not Joan of Arc, though both heard voices, Joan’s from angels, Marine’s from the ghost of Vichy. And yet, through an astounding combination of legal correctness and political cluelessness, the French establishment managed to lift her from a figure of divisive nationalism to a symbol, however manufactured, of resistance against the 'élites'.

Le Pen’s recent legal saga over the dissemination of violent images, those infamous ISIS tweets, ended with her conviction. Justice, by the letter of the law, prevailed. But politics? Politics tied itself in knots, dropped its trousers, and called it strategy.

Let’s be clear: what Le Pen did was grotesque, attention-seeking, and reckless. But by prosecuting her in a way that screamed “Look! We are still relevant!” the establishment offered her something far more valuable than freedom. They offered her victimhood.

In an age where political capital is built not on policy but on persecution, being the target of state machinery is better than a campaign budget. While Macron plays chess with technocrats, Le Pen is handed the slingshot of righteous indignation and told, “Aim at the system.” Of course she will. She always has. The difference now is that people, real, confused, disillusioned people, are watching and nodding along.

French politics is obsessed with optics. From the Napoleonic hand-in-vest pose to Macron’s Jupiterian metaphors, style always trumps substance. So, imagine their horror when Le Pen turned courtroom humiliation into political theatre, ripping off the script and re-writing herself as a rebel.

The irony? In trying to brand her as dangerous, the judiciary branded her as... dangerous. And to the anti-system voter, nothing sounds sexier.

This isn’t new. The playbook is ancient: antagonize the fringe until they’re no longer fringe. In the ‘70s, they did it with Marchais; in the ‘90s, with Jean-Marie Le Pen; and now, the torch has passed, blonde, stern-faced, and always one lawsuit away from a headline.

But while France fumbles with its democratic ideals like a teenager at their first protest, Le Pen sharpens her image. No longer just the daughter of a political pariah, she is cast as the woman who dared to “speak truth” and was punished for it. Never mind that the truth was laced with xenophobia, nationalism, and thinly veiled Islamophobia. She’s the one who “stood up.” That’s what sticks.

You’d think, with a history like France’s filled with revolutions, reigns of terror, and republics that fall faster than soufflés, the system would learn. But no. Instead, it repeats the same dance: attack the symptom, ignore the cause.

The real question isn’t “Did Marine Le Pen commit a crime?” That’s answered. The question is: what creates the climate where her rhetoric becomes palatable? The answer is uncomfortable and inconvenient. Inequality. Alienation. A public that sees politics as a Punch and Judy show for the privileged.

And while Macron’s government tiptoes around pension reforms and EU handshakes, Le Pen eats into the soul of La République with slogans, selfies, and a dose of courtroom drama.

Here’s the bitter truth: the legal system did its job. The political system did not. And the result is another notch on Le Pen’s belt of “they’re out to get me” a message that resonates far deeper than we’d like to admit.

France didn’t defend democracy. It dramatized it. It staged a moral showdown, then failed to control the narrative. And in today’s hypermediatized circus, controlling the narrative is everything.

So, the next time Le Pen rides high in the polls, looking less like a fringe candidate and more like a potential president, don’t ask how it happened. Ask how many times the system handed her a microphone when it should’ve been offering real answers to real fears.

Because in politics, as in theatre, it’s never just about who’s right. It’s about who tells the better story.

And right now, Marine Le Pen is getting standing ovations.