Marine Le Pen’s ‘Witch Hunt’ Talk Echoes Trump. Will It Work in France?

Since a Paris court barred her from standing for public office, Marine Le Pen has denounced a “witch hunt,” accused “the system” of deploying “a nuclear bomb” against her, evoked “judicial tyranny,” and suggested her followers are treated as “subhuman.”

In short, the French far-right leader, having spent the past 15 years trying to shed the extreme image and views of her party and make it more palatable to the political mainstream, has paused her makeover. She has embraced a Trump-like fury against “the system,” now used as a byword for the alleged plotting of the deep state and political judges against her.

Nowhere has Ms. Le Pen addressed in any detail the charges emanating from a nine-year investigation that found she orchestrated an illegal scheme to divert public money meant for use at the European Parliament to her National Rally party as it stood on the brink of financial collapse. In delivering a guilty verdict and sentence on March 31, the judges emphasized that no politician stands above the law.

Ms. Le Pen’s approach may be risky. For now, it is unclear whether the energizing ire of President Trump and his ardent support will benefit Ms. Le Pen and the other anti-immigrant far-right leaders in Europe — what President Emmanuel Macron of France, a centrist, has called “the Reactionary International.”

Might Mr. Trump’s embrace undermine them, given the on-and-off trade war with Europe, the erratic unpredictability and the draconian government-slashing steps of the president’s first weeks in office? Europe, after all, is the land of generous social safety nets, not of libertarian state dismantlement.

“With her back to the wall, Le Pen has reacted like a wounded beast from Trump world,” said Raphaël Llorca, a center-left author and political analyst. “But her core electorate is dismayed by the stripping of public services, Musk and Tesla. It is much closer to Trump 1.0 and Bannon than Trump 2.0.”