As Marine Le Pen prepares herself for her great election gamble, French academic Emile Chabal explores the similarities with populists Nigel Farage and Donald Trump - and whether these tactics will work in France.
The European populist right has been at the top of the political agenda in recent days.
On July 7th, everyone in France was waiting expectantly for a Paris appeal court to decide on whether Marine Le Pen, the leader of the Rassemblement National (RN), would be allowed to run in the 2027 presidential election after her conviction for embezzlement of European funds.
But just as the European media machine was gearing up for the verdict, across the Channel, Nigel Farage – the leader of Reform UK – announced on X that he would be making a “statement about his future”. This came after multiple allegations of undeclared gifts and an ongoing investigation into possible money laundering. Farage maintains that he has done nothing wrong.
The parallels were impossible to ignore. Here were two prominent European populist rightwing politicians whose political careers were being threatened by extensive and well-documented corruption claims. How would they respond?
