July 7th has huge significance for ultra-nationalists in France, especially Roman Catholics like Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader who will shortly have her own fate decided on that day.
Joan of Arc’s future status as France’s patron saint was assured on 7 July, 1456. Judges sitting in Rouen, Normandy, annulled an earlier trial verdict by a pro-English ecclesiastical court, which had seen Joan burned at the stake as a heretic.
She would eventually be elevated to the personification of patriotic, pure France that Le Pen’s party, the National Rally, now champions.
Shorts
Le Pen, 57, will face her own day in court on Tuesday, when appeal court judges will decide whether she’s going to serve a prison sentence and, crucially for France, whether or not she will be barred from standing in the 2027 presidential elections.
