US President Donald Trump has thrown his support behind another embattled far-right European leader, backing Marine Le Pen after French presidential hopeful was convicted of embezzlement and barred from political office.
“FREE MARINE LE PEN,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday, calling the court ruling a “Witch Hunt.”
The message is the latest high-profile endorsement from his administration of a far-right party in Europe and comes as Trump upends decades of post-World War Two security guarantees towards the continent with his “America First” foreign and trade policies.
Le Pen’s hopes of becoming France’s president in 2027 were cut short on Monday when a Paris court blocked her from standing for office for five years, after she was found guilty of embezzling European Union funds. The figurehead of the far-right National Rally (RN) party had been seen as the front-runner for the next election, and the ruling has thrown French politics into disarray.
“I don’t know Marine Le Pen, but do appreciate how hard she worked for so many years,” Trump wrote.
“She suffered losses, but kept on going, and now, just before what would be a Big Victory, they get her on a minor charge that she probably knew nothing about – Sounds like a ‘bookkeeping’ error to me.”
“It is all so bad for France, and the Great French People, no matter what side they are on,” Trump said.
The presiding judge in Le Pen’s case, Bénédicte de Perthuis, said the politician’s actions amounted to a “serious and lasting attack on the rules of democratic life in Europe, but especially in France.”
In addition to the ban, she was handed a four-year prison sentence with two years suspended, to be served under house arrest, and a €100,000 ($108,000) fine.
Le Pen, the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded her party when it was known as the National Front, slammed the ruling as a purely “political decision” in a television interview, and claimed the “rule of law [had been] completely violated.” She plans to appeal, her lawyer said.
Trump called the conviction a “very big deal” on Monday, drawing parallels with his own legal entanglements. His comments on Friday went further, with pointed criticism of European politicians.
“The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech, and censor their Political Opponent, this time going so far as to put that Opponent in prison,” said Trump.
There is no indication Le Pen will serve time in prison.
Trump’s sentiment echoes that of his top advisor Elon Musk who also publicly decried Le Pen’s sentence earlier this week, writing on his platform X: “When the radical left can’t win via democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to jail their opponents.”
The Trump administration has railed against perceived attacks on other far-right politicians in Europe, including a court decision to re-run the Romanian presidential election, which saw a surprise win by a far-right candidate.
The country’s constitutional court voided the initial result after declassified intelligence reports uncovered possible Russian interference in Calin Georgescu’s TikTok-fueled campaign. A re-run is scheduled for May, but Georgescu has been barred from running.
Vice President JD Vance has also publicly backed far-right groups in Europe, including the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Germany.
Musk has also backed the AfD, urging Germans to vote for the right-wing group in elections earlier this year, as well as English far-right figure Tommy Robinson. The AfD almost doubled its vote share and surged into second place in the polls, behind the center-right Christian Democratic Union.