JERUSALEM — The stunning court conviction of popular right-wing politician Marine Le Pen on Monday for embezzlement sparked outrage from President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency head, Elon Musk, who compared her fate to Trump’s legal troubles.
Musk said after the verdict that, "This will backfire, like the legal attacks against President Trump." Musk pinned the blame on the left for the conviction of Le Pen. He wrote on X, "When the radical left can’t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents. This is their standard playbook throughout the world."
The conviction of Le Pen, which bans her from running for office for five years, comes amid legal prosecutions of other right-wing politicians, ranging from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Romania’s Călin Georgescu to former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
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Fox News Digital reported last year, after a Manhattan jury convicted then-former President Trump of falsifying business records, that legal experts saw similarities between his case and the ongoing corruption prosecution against Netanyahu.
When asked on Monday about Le Pen's sentence, Trump told reporters it was "a big deal," adding, "But she was banned for running for five years, and she's the leading candidate. That sounds like this country, that sounds very much like this country."
Other cases where world leaders and politicians on the right have been targeted include Netanyahu, who was charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a legal saga that started four years ago and is still unfolding. Netanyahu has flatly denied all the accusations against him.
Romania’s right-wing presidential frontrunner, Georgescu, was barred from the race under criminal charges he compared to those Trump faced.
"We are faced with a communist regime as well," Georgescu told Fox News Digital just before a Romanian electoral bureau barred him from running in a May presidential election rerun. Prosecutors opened a criminal case against him two weeks prior.
Just last week, Brazil’s Supreme Court accepted charges against former President Bolsonaro over an alleged attempt to remain in office after his 2022 election defeat, ordering the former leader to stand trial.
Italy’s Vice Premier Matteo Salvini, who was cleared in December of illegally detaining migrants, called his case "a declaration of war by Brussels."
Eugene Kontorovich, a legal expert and senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, told Fox News Digital, "France follows the pattern of political prosecutions in the U.S. and Israel, where criminal prosecutions for obscure victimless offenses are used to knock out popular leaders of right wing parties, and use to courts to stand between the electorate and their preferred candidates. It is unlikely these cases are all happening within a year of each other: Leftists around the world are learning from, and legitimizing, each other’s tactics."
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The heart of the embezzlement case revolves around accusations against Le Pen and more than 20 other National Rally figures who allegedly used EU funds to hire employees to work for the National Rally instead of matters involving the European Parliament as required by EU regulations in Brussels.
The French court also imposed a four-year prison sentence on Le Pen. The conviction unleashed a political earthquake in France, where the next presidential election is slated for 2027.
Right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, an ally of Trump, posted in French on social media a solidarity message, "Je suis Marine!" ("I am Marine"), an apparent reference to the slogan "Je suis Charlie" that was formulated after radical Islamist terrorists murdered journalists in 2015 from the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in Paris.
Le Pen has transformed the anti-immigration party National Rally (formerly called the National Front) into a serious political force that is a legitimate contender to win the 2027 presidential election.
She ousted her father, the late Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the National Front, and rejected his antisemitism. He was fined for terming the Holocaust gas chambers a "detail of history".
Marine Le Pen's protégé, the 29-year-old Jordan Bardella, recently spoke last week at an Israeli government conference on combating antisemitism. He is expected to take over the National Rally. He urged a "peaceful mobilization" to protest the verdict.
According to French24, Bardella said the guilty verdict has "killed" French democracy. His party launched a petition that states:"It is no longer the government of judges, but the dictatorship of judges, which wishes to prevent the French people from expressing themselves."
Le Pen's lawyer, Rodolphe Bosselut, announced that he would appeal the verdict.
"I am shocked by the incredibly tough verdict against Marine Le Pen," said Holland’s right-wing politician, Geert Wilders, who has been dubbed the Dutch version of Trump.
He added,"I support and believe in her 100% and I trust she will win the appeal and become President of France."
Fox News Digital's Morgan Phillips, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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