It is unprecedented. Never before have we seen thieves, real thieves convicted of organized theft, call for a protest demonstration against the judgment that condemned them. We see thugs parading after their release from prison. We also see them celebrating the failure of the justice system to prove their guilt, but this Sunday meeting of the National Rally (RN), no, that was a real first.

This party had the European Parliament pay the salaries of its collaborators by passing them off as assistants to its MEPs. More than four million euros have indeed been stolen from taxpayers across the Union, including the French, since it is their taxes that finance the European Parliament as they finance the national parliaments. There has been a misappropriation of public funds for the benefit of a political party, but rather than making amends and repaying the embezzled money, the RN and its leadership are staging a gathering and denouncing the Justice system.

One cannot differentiate the work of the assistants from the political support provided to the elected representatives who hire them, they vehemently say, pretending to be unaware that the preparation and negotiation of legislative texts, the parliamentary work for which the assistants are paid, is done in the Parliament and not in Paris, twelve hours a day at that.

The thieves are lying. They are lying brazenly and are surprised that the courts were able to make the sentence of ineligibility handed down to Marine Le Pen immediately enforceable, without waiting for the appeal judgment. This is clear proof, they protest, that it is all just a plot to prevent their candidate from standing for president again.

The thieves claim to have been robbed of an election.

All we hear is their lament, their weeping and their fury, but whether or not this sentence is questionable and whether the appeal upholds, reduces or overturns it, is it conceivable that a party could present someone to the highest office of the land when she is responsible for the embezzlement of public funds?

The answer is in the question, in the only question that matters, because if Mrs Le Pen had an ounce of respect for France, she would give up running for the presidency, of which she is no longer worthy after the theft of those four million euros.

By organizing this gathering alone, she has disqualified herself morally, but should we be surprised? What would be so unexpected about this culprit becoming a victim when her political friends, her defenders in Washington, Moscow, Budapest and Rio, are called Trump, Putin, Orban, Musk and Bolsonaro?

The club of liars and thieves is by her side because she is one of them.

(Photo: Claude Truong-Ngoc, Wikimedia Commons)