The Criminal Court found Marine Le Pen and eight other leaders of the RN (National Rally) guilty of misappropriating public funds in the European parliamentary assistants trial. The court added a five-year period of ineligibility to Le Pen’s sentence thus eliminating her from the Presidential election¹.

Le Pen got the same severe judgement that she requires from judges when others are being condemned. Serves her right!

It may be a blow to her political career but it changes nothing for workers. Elections don’t change their fate, they exist just to give the illusion of change but power always remains in the hands of the capitalists.

Workers have no reason to shed tears over Marine Le Pen being pushed out by a court decision. As for those who are pleased about the setback, they need to realize that there tens if not hundreds of politicians who are just as anti-worker as she is.

Le Pen and her party are marked by their history. They are the heirs to the FN (National Front) founded by people who collaborated with Nazi Germany and militants for French Algeria. They upheld the most despicable racist ideas and have a particular responsibility for their spread.

But Le Pen and Bardella have something in common with every other politician: a profound respect for the capitalist system and the bourgeoisie. And, as we have seen with politicians from all sides, we can be sure that, once they reach power, they will govern for the rich and as the enemy of workers.

Last June, when he came close to entering Matignon², Bardella did away with all the social promises the RN had made, such as retirement at 62 and the abolition of VAT³ on food.

Now more than ever, Bardella and Le Pen are trying to seduce the biggest capitalists. Bernard Arnault’s fortune is close to 200 billion euros and when he complained that taxes were too high and threatened to move his business offshore, Bardella came to his rescue.

“I heard Bernard Arnault’s cry of alarm,” he said. Adding his voice to those of bosses whose pockets are overflowing, he criticized “tax hell”. For him, what’s unfair is not that workers have to deal with price gouging or that they are exploited and laid off for capitalist profits. No, what Bardella considers unfair is that Arnault, who receives profits equivalent to the minimum wage every 15 seconds, has to pay a little bit of tax!

The RN is not the people’s party and most certainly not the party of the exploited. Nothing it proposes is an attack on those who hold power. Like the right wing and the current government, Bardella and Le Pen are telling workers that their problems stem from those who are even poorer than they are, particularly immigrant workers.

It’s hard to tell the difference between the RN’s policies and those of Retailleau (France’s Secretary of Homeland Security) or Darmanin (France’s Attorney General)! They all blame immigrant workers in order to disguise the responsibility of capitalists for the state of society. They all spread the divisive poison of xenophobia that disarms the working class in the face of its exploiters. And if the RN, heir to an openly antisemitic party, has converted to being a defender of the Jews, it’s in the hope of using the war in Gaza to stigmatize Muslims.

The capitalist crisis is worsening and driving us towards new catastrophes. In this context, the RN’s ideas – not only its xenophobia but also its nationalism and calls for protectionist withdrawal – are fueling the militaristic and warlike evolution of the whole of society.

Le Pen is currently taking on an air of false pacifism, being less warmongering than Macron with regard to Russia. But, just like Trump in the U.S., she’s the first to stir up chauvinism by claiming that danger comes from abroad, from international competitiveness and that we need to be ready to face it, even with war.

The RN has planned the same future for us as Macron and both right- and left-wing politicians: a capitalist system that is increasingly hard on workers, more and more predatory, nationalistic and warlike.

Whatever party or government rules in this context, they will ask the workers for more sacrifices. So, instead of looking for a supreme savior that doesn’t exist, workers must return to the path of class struggle, be a working class united to defend its interests, dethrone the capitalist class and change the course of history.

Nathalie Arthaud