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Within weeksRNRN Your browser does not support the element., Marine Le Pen, the leader of the hard-right National Rally (), could be propelled to the centre of French parliamentary politics—or out of it. Two imminent decisions will determine both the government’s survival and Ms Le Pen’s own future. The first is whether she decides to bring down Michel Barnier’s minority government over . The second depends on whether judges in a trial over the misuse of public funds decide in March 2025 to bar her from holding public office for five years with immediate effect.On the first count, is hanging by a thread. When the prime minister was appointed in September, Ms Le Pen pledged not to vote against his government right away. But she offered no more support than that. As the budget has wound its way through parliament, and into a blizzard of tax-raising amendments, Ms Le Pen’s hostility has hardened. None of the measures she dislikes, such as a rise in tax on electricity bills or delaying an inflation-linked increase to state pensions, has been removed.Mr Barnier, who must pass the budget by December 21st, now says he will probably use a constitutional device to force it through. This would prompt a no-confidence motion from the left, which would topple the government if backed by deputies. A poll suggests 67% of her electorate wants her to do this. “If the budget remains as it is,” declared Ms Le Pen after meeting Mr Barnier on November 25th, “we’ll vote for no confidence.” The next day the spread on French ten-year government debt over German bunds widened to 0.86 percentage points, its highest since the days of the euro-zone crisis in 2012.Ms Le Pen’s moment as a pivotal figure, however, could be short-lived. On November 27th she was back in a courtroom in Paris for the last day of her trial. She and 24 other party figures are accused of using nearly €7m ($7.4m) of European Parliament money between 2004 and 2016 to finance assistants who, says the prosecution, were in fact working for the national party. Ms Le Pen denies any wrongdoing.The stakes for Ms Le Pen are huge. The prosecution has asked for her to be sentenced to a €300,000 fine, five years behind bars (with three suspended) and to be barred from holding electoral office for five years. Under an anti-corruption law passed in 2016, the five-year ineligibility period is obligatory if she is found guilty. The judges do, however, have discretion over whether to order Ms Le Pen to start her sentence immediately, and whether to adjust the sentence to take into account her “personality”. If they do decide to bar her immediately, she will be out of the presidential race.The trial has taken the party aback. It had been doing its best to sound respectful of democratic institutions in order to look like a government-in-waiting. Now Ms Le Pen has accused the judiciary in almost Trumpian terms of wanting her “political death”. A poll makes Ms Le Pen the most popular figure to succeed as president. The idea, she declared, that the French “could be deprived of their choice is a violent attack on democracy”. If she is barred from office it will bring relief in some quarters. But it could also shore up support among those convinced that the system is against her.
