Earlier this week, the anti-establishment French political leader whom all polls suggest would easily win the presidency, if the vote were held tomorrow, was barred from running for office for five years. How convenient.

Right-wing National Rally leader Marine Le Pen has been found guilty in a Paris court of embezzling European Union funds. Accused of enabling a system whereby aides hired to serve in Brussels ended up doing work for the party, she was also fined an sentenced to two years of home detention under electronic monitoring. The allegations against Le Pen, dating back to at least 2014, were so old that they could have qualified for a French pension. But now the verdict conveniently takes her out of the 2027 election cycle.

If you were looking for a foolproof way to supercharge support for Le Pen’s party, congratulations, French judiciary – you nailed it. There’s no better way to fire up a political movement than to turn its leader into a martyr of a state that looks to be meddling with citizens’ democratic options. Just ask Romania’s Câlin Georgescu, who was on his way to victory before getting politically kneecapped by the system: arrested, accused of foreign funding, then ultimately just dismissed for a paperwork technicality.

And what happened next? His replacement, George Simion, is now surging in the polls. Who could’ve seen that coming? (Spoiler: Everyone.)

Disqualifying candidates for crimes like corruption, fraud, and electoral violations wasn’t automatic in France – until Emmanuel Macron’s........

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