Marine Le Pen leads a party that was founded by Holocaust deniers and former Nazi-collaborators. It speaks of French people of immigrant background as second-class citizens and routinely calls for foreign-born criminals to be expelled from France. It has a long history of damning the presence of fraudsters and convicts in French political life. Le Pen has herself launched legal action to political ends. Her party’s claim, today, to be victim of a weaponized justice system is the height of hypocrisy and double-standards.

Even knowing all these things, it’s probable that the ban on Marine Le Pen running for office will backfire.

The Paris court ruling on Monday, with a sentence applied immediately, means that she cannot stand for election or hold office for five years. A reform introduced in 2016 made this an automatic sentencing requirement for political embezzlement convictions of this kind. Le Pen’s defenders — like her Rassemblement National party’s president, Jordan Bardella — claim that this is an assault by “elites” on democracy itself. A string of right-wing personalities have sought to portray this as a government attack on the main opposition party. This claim is overstated, not least considering that the legal process started fully a decade ago.

No one is above the law, and the court could not rule based on Le Pen’s personal popularity. But banning candidates from running for office due to financial crimes is highly dubious. The damaging effect on the democratic choice seems out of proportion to the crime in question, and (even coupled with a €2 million fine) is ineffective in punishing the party. As left-wing party France Insoumise pointed out in a statement, the Rassemblement National’s claim to be uniquely “clean” and stand against a corrupt establishment is in tatters. But that is for the electorate to judge. France Insoumise added that it had never sought to “use the courts as a means of defeating the Rassemblement National,” but instead relied on “popular mobilization of the French people.”

The European Parliament establishes firm rules on what parliamentary assistants can be used for. The messages among Rassemblement National members, discussed in court, show that over the period from 2004 to 2016 the party knowingly signed up activists to fake jobs, so that they could be employed as full-time campaigners who barely or never visited the parliament.

This is what British Euroskeptics sometimes call the “gravy train” in Brussels: exactly the kind of thing that a self-styled “antiestablishment,” far-right party could be expected to condemn. In a Europe where major parties are often election-campaign vehicles without a mass of members and active local branches, this kind of reliance on parliaments and public funds to finance political activism is also increasingly normal.

Likely cynical about the work being done by parliamentary assistants in Brussels of any political stripe, potential Rassemblement National supporters are not going to shudder in horror at the finding that the party misused funds. While likely alternative candidate Bardella may be a weaker presidential contender, the idea that the party is being stifled by politically motivated “lawfare” — a claim likely amplified from the heights of the White House and Twitter/X — seems well-designed to galvanize its base.

Now, even as the party becomes more conventional in many policy areas, from its support for NATO to its abandonment of its former anti-euro stance, it will take up the banner of defending “democracy” from “elites.”

So, what next? Last summer’s parliamentary elections looked sure to be a victory for the Rassemblement National, and Bardella seemed like a potential prime minister. But, thanks to the surprisingly strong performance of the Left, that didn’t happen — and in the runoff races, there was enough tactical voting to ensure that the far-right alliance only came in third place nationally. So, the Rassemblement National can, even now, be beaten. But not like this.