Without Le Pen, her party is doomed to electoral oblivion

When Marine Le Pen took over the running of France’s Front National, she pledged a new dawn for a party firmly associated with pernicious racism.

- PETER ALLEN

She said the extreme prejudices of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen – the convicted Holocaust denier who founded Front National along with former Nazi soldiers in 1972 – had no part to play in the party’s future. What she did not mention during the changeover in 2011 was what would happen if her criminal activity around the European parliament was exposed.

It came into sharp focus yesterday when Madame Le Pen was found guilty of “embezzling public funds” and was handed a four-year prison sentence, subject to appeal. Just as devastating, the 56-year-old was told she would not be allowed to run for public office during a five-year period that will cover the French presidential election in two years’ time.