Marine Le Pen’s victim narrative is already being constructed – but there are ways to stop her criminal conviction benefitting her

By Aurelien Mondon, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Bath

Marine Le Pen, figurehead of France’s Rassemblement National (RN), one of the most established far-right parties in Europe, has been found guilty of embezzling funds from the European parliament.

During her time as an MEP between 2004 and 2017, Le Pen and her team paid party staff with funds that should have gone to European parliamentary aides. The ruling estimates that a total of €2.9 million (£2.4 million) in European parliament funds were involved…

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