The far right is not making as much progress as it would like across France, but it is gaining new municipalities and strengthening its position in Northern Catalonia. National Rally (RN), Marine Le Pen's party, already secured the mayorship of Perpignan a week ago with an absolute majority in the first round, and this Sunday it won in the second round of the municipal elections In Ribesaltes and Cañoses, in Roussillon. The far-right politician Steve Fortel also won in Elna, and Gilles Foxonet, another far-right politician, retained his position in Baixàs. "It's a lesson for the future of Catalonia and Spain: simply calling them fascists isn't enough," former mayor of Elna Nicolas Garcia told ARA. "We Catalans can't win," added Forques councilor Jordi Vera, who emphasized that 60% of the population comes from outside Northern Catalonia.

The first round of municipal elections held this Sunday in France confirms the advance of the far right. Final results will not be known until next Sunday, but Marine Le Pen's party, the National Rally (RN), has managed to advance to the second round in the vast majority of municipalities where it ran and will compete to win in city halls where it has not yet governed, such as Marseille, France's second-largest city, Nice, and Toulon. "It is a huge victory for our movement," Le Pen declared in a message to X.

The French return to the polls this Sunday to elect their local representatives. France is holding the first round of municipal elections, votes that don't usually carry national weight. However, this time, the proximity of the presidential elections—scheduled for spring 2027—will mean that the results will be interpreted through the lens of national politics. Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN), a party that has traditionally had a weak local presence, wants the municipal elections to be its springboard to the Élysée Palace. Le Pen and her right-hand man—and likely presidential candidate if she is definitively barred from running—Jordan Bardella, want to translate their strong showing in the recent legislative and European elections into more mayoralties. This won't be easy because the RN's limited local presence means it can't field candidates in a significant number of municipalities. There's an anecdote that perfectly illustrates the situation: Bardella won't be able to vote for a candidate from the party he leads because Garches, the municipality of 17,000 inhabitants where he lives on the outskirts of Paris, doesn't have a candidate from Réagrupament Nacional.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen returns to the dock this Tuesday in a trial that will shape her political future. Le Pen was sentenced in March 2025 to four years in prison – only two of which were served –, five years of disqualification and a fine of 100,000 euros for misappropriation of European Parliament funds in the case of fraud in parliamentary assistant contracts. Unlike the prison sentence, the court of first instance ruled for the immediate application of the disqualification, even though the sentence was not yet final. De factoThe leader of the National Rally (RN) was barred from the 2027 presidential race. Le Pen appealed the sentence, and the appeal hearing, which will last a month, begins this Tuesday. It represents her last chance to run for president.

Once again, the European Union has been unable to forge a unified and coherent position in the face of a US military operation in Venezuela that violates all rules of international law. So far, the majority response has been to somehow endorse Maduro's capture and then ask the White House to democratize the country as quickly as possible, as if Donald Trump had acted in the name of universal democratic principles and not out of his own geopolitical and economic interests. In fact, many of those who rushed to celebrate Maduro's downfall on Saturday are now watching with perplexity as Washington may have reached some kind of agreement with his second-in-command, Delcy Rodríguez, to allow her to remain in power. Indeed, this is the situation on the ground in Venezuela.

President Emmanuel Macron finds himself at the most critical moment since he took up residence in the Élysée Palace. After seeing five prime ministers come and go in just two years, the situation is becoming unsustainable. He hasn't spoken publicly for days—his explanations for the entire chaos on Monday, when Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu resigned, were given in a short press release—but his entourage has leaked to the press that if the parties don't agree to form a government that won't be immediately censured, he "will assume his responsibilities." In other words, he will call early legislative elections.

Emmanuel Macron's second term as President of France is turning into an ordeal that, unless significant changes occur, could end with the presidency being handed to Marine Le Pen or someone from her party. The current situation in the country is Kafkaesque. Macron is trying to convince Sébastien Lecornu to reconsider and reverse his decision to resign as Prime Minister just 24 hours after presenting his government and less than a month after taking office. If the resignation is confirmed, Lecornu will be the fifth Prime Minister to resign from Macron's second term. Before him, Élisabeth Borne, Gabriel Attal, Michel Barnier, and François Bayrou have all failed. France is currently immersed in a serious institutional crisis that appears to be entrenched and from which there is no clear way out.

François Bayrou's government's days are numbered. If the French Prime Minister still held out any hope of being able to overcome the vote of no confidence that will be submitted to the National Assembly next Monday, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen made it clear this Tuesday that she will let the government fall. "There has been no miracle," said Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally and Le Pen's right-hand man, after meeting with the Prime Minister alongside Le Pen.

The global far-right alliance once again demonstrated its strength yesterday at the rally in support of Marine Le Pen held in Paris. The event, which was less well-attended than planned by the organizers, had been called in protest of the ruling that condemns the leader of the National Regrouping (RN) party to four years in prison and five years of disqualification for embezzlement related to fraudulent contracts in the European Parliament, which would prevent her from running in the next presidential elections. If last week, immediately upon the announcement of the sentence, Le Pen had already received the unconditional support of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and JD Vance, who insisted on the witch hunt against freedom of expression that, in their opinion, is taking place in Europe, yesterday, Santiago Abascal, Javier Milei, and Viktor Orbe gave her heat with videos during the event.

In case it wasn't clear enough in recent days, Marine Le Pen said it again this Sunday: Despite the five-year ban that will hardly allow him to run in the 2027 presidential elections, does not intend to throw in the towel. "Rest assured: I will not give up. This [judicial] decision has trampled on my people, my country, and my honor," the leader of the National Rally (RN) exclaimed this Sunday before thousands of supporters gathered in Paris to support her. "We do not resign, we do not bow down," she warned.

The ruling condemning Marine Le Pen to four years in prison and five years of disqualification—which will make it unlikely she will be able to run in the 2027 presidential elections—has changed everything. Since a Paris court On Monday, the far-right leader was sentenced for embezzlement of public funds.Le Pen has abandoned her moderate rhetoric and has dedicated herself to attacking state institutions with unprecedented vehemence and anger. This week, the leader of the National Regrouping (RN) party accused "the system" of using a "nuclear bomb" to prevent her from running for president, and the party called for street mobilizations. "If they're using such a powerful weapon against us, it means we're about to win the election," she asserted, referring to the nuclear bomb.

The day after Marine Le Pen was sentenced to five years of immediate disqualification For embezzlement of public funds, French Prime Minister François Bayrou expressed his openness to reviewing the law that allowed the far-right leader to be disqualified. "In law, any criminal decision with serious consequences must be subject to appeal," Bayrou stated this Tuesday in the National Assembly. The prime minister asserted that the law raises "questions" and opened the door to "reflection."

The day after Marine Le Pen was sentenced to five years of immediate disqualification For embezzlement of public funds, Le Pen's far-right party called for a "peaceful" mobilization. The party has called for a large street rally in Paris this Sunday, open to the public. "We are showing that the will of the people is stronger with a peaceful and popular mobilization," urged Jordan Bardella, Le Pen's right-hand woman and a likely presidential candidate if the leader remains disqualified following appeals against the ruling.

Has the time come for Donald Trump and the European far right to openly align themselves? The French justice system has sidelined Marine Le Pen, just when she seemed close to reaching the peak of the Fifth Republic—the presidency—and the candidate's European colleagues are up in arms. The case of embezzlement is so obvious—European money used in Brussels for contracts and current expenses of the party in France—that legal criticism has little scope, and the far right has already jumped directly to challenging the system. Democratic scandal, institutional coup d'état, is the refrain resonating throughout Orbán's Europe—"I am Marine"—and the far right, who daily follow the Trumpian ritual of disavowing democratic legality.

Champions of democracy like Putin, Orbán, Salvini, Elon Musk, and that sad figure called Abascal came out in force to deplore the court ruling against Marine Le Pen, leader of the French National Rally party. They immediately turned Le Pen into a victim of the system: they use harsh words like judicial scandal, covert coup d'état either liquidation of democracy, as the far right always does when it clashes with justice or, simply, with the norms of representative democracy. They are the same ones who applaud or promote the lawfare, The dirty judicial war against political adversaries, through judges or prosecutors willing to act in vain: then they find that justice must be final, and that any debate about judicial prevarication is an attack on democracy. We, the subjects of the Kingdom of Spain, have experienced all of this.

Today, two very important pieces of justice news. In France, Marine Le Pen has been disqualified for fraud in the hiring of assistants to the European Parliament.

Dominique Sistach is a jurist and sociologist, professor at the University of Perpignan Via Domícia, and an expert on political radicalism. In a conversation with ARA, he analyzes the possible consequences. of the conviction of Marine Le Pen.

The global far right now has a new victim of the system. "I am Marine!" declared Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán after learning of the corruption conviction of National Rally leader and far-right muse Marine Le Pen. Elon Musk told X that "when the radical left cannot win through democratic voting, it abuses the legal system to imprison its opponents"; and Matteo Salvini, from Rome, linked the corruption conviction of the French far-right leader with the ban on ultra-nationalist Calin Georgescu running in Romania's upcoming presidential elections. Even Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov condemned the sentence as "a violation of democratic norms."

The conviction and disqualification of Marine Le Pen for fraud in the hiring of assistants to the European Parliament represents a new earthquake in French politics, already sufficiently weakened in its party system and governance. And, incidentally, in European politics, where the rise of the far right threatens the stability and viability of the Union and casts doubt on the anti-Putin front. While, on the one hand, it seems highly unlikely that the sentence can be reversed to allow the leader of the National Rally (RN) party a chance to run in the 2027 presidential elections, on the other, it is clear that both she and her party will do—and have already begun to do—whatever is necessary to seek a boomerang effect. Although it is clear that their leader has been personally affected, it is too early to consider both the RN party and Le Pen to be damaged and sunk.

The National Rally had already warned: "If Marine Le Pen were declared ineligible, we would reach an unprecedented level in the government of judges." Indeed, as soon as we left the Palace of JusticeThe boss had already spoken of "a very violent attack on democracy," always arguing that the only legitimacy is that which emanates from the sovereign people, who, it must be said, have never granted her access to power until now. Thus ends—unless a potential appeal saves the doomed woman—the Le Pen lineage that has led the French far right since Jean-Marie, Marine's father, challenged Gaullism.