Macron Breaks Silence on Le Pen Election Ban, Claims French Justice Is ‘Independent’

In his first comments since the controversial court ruling to ban longstanding rival Marine Le Pen from the next presidential election, French President Emmanuel Macron rejected accusations that the country’s judicial system is biased.

Speaking of Monday’s ruling from a Paris court to enact a five-year ban on National Rally leader Marine Le Pen from running in any election over alleged embezzlement of European Union funds, President Emmanuel Macron maintained that “justice is independent” in France.

According to French broadcaster BFMTV, Macron added that “everyone has the right to equivalent justice and that the right is the same for everyone.”

If it stands, the decision to ban Le Pen from electoral politics, even during the appeal process during which defendants in France are typically afforded the presumption of innocence, perhaps benefits Macron and his neo-liberal allies more than any other faction in the country.

Le Pen was Macron’s chief opponent in both the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections. According to the polls, she is currently in pole position to replace Macron when his second and final term in the Élysée Palace ends in 2027.

Following years of economic stagnation and growing anger at Macron’s liberal government’s mass migration policies, in addition to a lack of a clear heir-apparent to his regime, Le Pen’s path to power finally seemed to have opened prior to the ruling.

Should Macron be succeeded by the National Rally leader — who the political and media establishment has cast as “far-right” and outside the bounds of acceptable politics — it would likely represent a significant stain on his political legacy and a rejection of the worldview he espouses.

While Macron attempted to assert that the decision to ban his main political rival was impartial, others, including those on both the left and right ends of the political spectrum, have accused the judiciary of acting inappropriately and infringing upon the democratic process.

Commenting on the case, French Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and Le Pen’s niece, Marion Maréchal, accused the court of being politically biased against her aunt.

Although there has been some recent rapprochement between Maréchal and Le Pen, the two have long been estranged. Maréchal controversially endorsed polemicist author Éric Zemmour over her aunt in the 2022 presidential race and even dropped the ‘Le Pen’ from her last name.

Nevertheless, Maréchal staunchly defended Le Pen following this week’s ruling to ban her from electoral politics. The MEP claimed that the judicial branch is biased against the right, citing France’s second-largest magistrates’ trade union, the Syndicat de la Magistrature, calling last year for “resistance” against the “accession to power of the extreme right”.

Is that not political justice?” Maréchal questioned.

She also pointed to previous rulings from the lead judge in Le Pen’s case, Benedicte de Perthuis, who acquitted former leftist government minister Olivier Dussopt in 2024 over a case in which he received gifts from a company he later awarded a government contract to. The acquittal of Perthuis was later overturned by the Paris Court of Appeal. “Mistakes are allowed, only when you are a socialist,” Maréchal quipped.

Questions of bias in the ruling against Le Pen have also been raised over the apparent selective enforcement of violations of the rules surrounding EU Parliament funds, with a report finding that over a hundred MEPs faced no punishment after having broken the same rules as Le Pen has been accused of violating.

The case against Le Pen will be taken up by the Paris Court of Appeals, which said on Tuesday that it plans on deciding the matter by the summer of next year. Should Le Pen actually prevail on appeal, she would likely have enough time to still run in the presidential race in 2027.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on X: Follow @KurtZindulka or e-mail to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.