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Brussels Playbook Podcast
The verdict that could shake up French politics
00:15:52
Europe awaits a crucial verdict in the case of France’s National Rally leader, Marine Le Pen.
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- [00:00]
A
Good morning. It's Tuesday, July 7th, and this is the Brussels Playbook podcast. The vibe in Brussels today is on edge as Europe awaits the verdict that will determine whether the French national rally leader, Marine Le Pen will run for president next year or if it's going to be her protege, Jordan Bardella. Also on the pod, NATO allies meet in Ankara with one goal, avoiding a giant Trump blow up. And the EU is trying to ensure its new biometric entry exit system doesn't leave travelers stranded at the border as holiday season kicks off. I'm Zoya Shevdolovic and with me today is our senior finance reporter, Catherine Carson. Hey, Katie.
- [00:45]
B
Hey, Zoya. Where in the world are you?
- [00:48]
A
I am in Australia. I'm taking advantage of that famous politico generous, working from abroad policy. And I'm spending this week working from Australia with some family time. And thanks for stepping in. Ian is on holidays this week. So you've been jumped on the pod.
- [01:01]
B
Bunch of slackers in this newsroom.
- [01:05]
A
Absolutely. Famous slackers. Someone should give us a red card and then maybe Donald Trump can appeal it. All right, Katie, listen, first story, this is the day we have been banging on about for absolutely months. It's the day when Marine Le Pen, the French far right leader from National Rally, is going to find out whether her appeal against her conviction for embezzlement of funding from the EU is successful or not. And ergo, whether she gets to run for French president next year.
- [01:35]
B
Absolutely. So this is a super decisive case. I'm sure many of you will remember that at the beginning of last year, Marine Le Pen, she was barred from running for president for the next five years because of this embezzlement case. So she was found guilty of embezzling more than 4 million euros in European Parliament funds between 2004 and 2016.
- [01:54]
A
Yeah. This was when she was paying. Investigators found she was paying people to do party work on the EU dime.
- [02:00]
B
Exactly. It was all French stuff, but the money was for EU stuff, so that was the reason for the issue. And there were cases like MEPs, assistants who were found to be texting, asking to meet the MEP that they'd supposedly been working for for months. So it was pretty damning in terms of the evidence anyway. So she was found guilty of that. She's appealed, and now we're going to find out whether that appeal has been successful or whether the conviction is going to be upheld. There's a couple of potential scenarios here. Can you talk us through them? Yeah.
- [02:28]
A
So scenario number one, she's acquitted and Then she can run for the election in 2027. She'll be the RN candidate. Now, that one, not even national rally thinks that's likely. They all think that's very, very unlikely. She could be found guilty and then she might get a ban of over two years, in which case she can't run for the presidency and we get Jordan Bardella instead. Or she could be guilty, but there might be a reduced ban. So if it's two years of Inel to run for office rather than five, then she could actually technically sneak in because the ban would expire on 31 March 2027 and the first round of the French election is April 2027.
- [03:07]
B
But then whether or not she has to wear an ankle bracelet is an important thing that's coming into this, right?
- [03:12]
A
Totally. Yeah. She can run if she's given the reduced ban, but if she has to serve her time in prison at home wearing an electronic tag puts a bit of a dampener on that campaigning that she's able to do. Obviously that's going to be pretty problematic.
- [03:27]
B
Well, also, she said that she won't run if she has to wear an ankle tag. Right. Because it doesn't work with being a presidential candidate, basically.
- [03:33]
A
Yeah, it would be pretty much impossible. Although maybe that might win her some votes walking around looking like a felon. But she could also challenge the verdict in France's top court, but that's going to take ages and so that's unlikely to actually help her.
- [03:47]
B
And I mean, this is a huge, decisive thing for Europe. Right? Everybody is watching what's going to be the outcome of this French election next year. It's going to drastically change the relationship that France could have to the eu, depending who win. Whether or not the court upholds this five year ban is going to be really decisive to this, this election. I mean, either she's going to be out of the running and she's been a huge figure on the stage for the last decade or more. She's run for president three times already. So who's going to be up if she's, if she's out of the race?
- [04:14]
A
Yeah, look, well, firstly, we should say her party is ahead in the polls right now. National Rally is polling in first place. If she is out of the running entirely, then it looks most likely like it's going to be her protege, Jordan Bardella. As I mentioned earlier now, he's not without his potential legal problems. He's also embroiled in a bit of a mess of investigations into potential embezzlement but that investigation is going to take longer. And even if they do find in the end that he's guilty of whatever it is that the allegations relate to, he'd probably still be fine because he gets immunity if he does win the French presidency. So that's not going to affect things in the same way. But he's this 30 year old uni dropout raised in a poor Paris suburb to a working class family. He had an Italian mother and father, so an immigrant. And he kind of came to prominence on TikTok. I mean, classic story of the far right politician in this current day and age. Right.
- [05:09]
B
But I mean, just being 30 years old, I guess that's also going to be a potential issue if he ends up being the nominee in the presidential election. I mean, Macron was 39 when he was elected and people already had issues with that.
- [05:20]
A
I think he's not fully new. I mean, he's been an MEP for a while, so he is known in Brussels, he's known around Europe. But he is kind of, I'm not sure that anyone necessarily knows exactly what a presidency under Jordan Bardella might look like. Next up, Katie. I mean, this second story would normally lead this podcast with, but you know, it's that kind of day. It's a big news day in Europe today. It's about the NATO summit that's kicking off in Ankara today. It's going to be a two day affair and it's basically all of the leaders of NATO allies who are gathering in Turkey to talk defense spending, industry, the war in Ukraine, unity in the alliance, but really underscoring all of that. And the most important thing that they're all going to be talking about is how to keep Donald Trump inside the tent. Show him that, you know, everyone's spending big, big, big, big on defense and looking after themselves.
- [06:17]
B
Yeah, exactly. So our colleague Victor Jack, our NATO reporter, has a story out today talking about how the vibe is all about showing Trump the money, avoiding the drama, keeping the US on side. I mean, if you just think about all of the various dramas, it's difficult to even the dramas that we've had over the last year. He's attacked allies over their lack of defence spending. I mean, Donald Trump has been annoyed that the allies haven't backed his war in Iran. It also happened this year. It was still this year that he threatened to annex Greenland.
- [06:46]
A
Greenland.
- [06:48]
B
Greenland. I know. Are we even thinking about Greenland these days? It feels like so many things have happened since then. But that was in fact this year, even recently. He's been posting on social media about how much the US is overpaying for NATO compared to the European countries. So now the attempt by the Europeans is to frame the summit sort of in Trump's language. So it's also important to note that it's going to be framed around his attention span. It's just one short meeting, two and a half hours, in the hopes that he'll stay engaged for that and not drift off too much. And Mark Rutter is also underlining this we're spending, spending, spending policy. So he wants to talk all about the fact that the Europeans are spending an extra $139 billion since 2025, since the US told them to get their act together and start spending more on defence.
- [07:31]
A
Yeah, and I should have been clear, sir. I mean, it's a two day meeting, but the leaders portion of the meeting is just one single, two and a half hour meeting that's planned. All of the other stuff around, it happens over the course of two days. But the summit this time around, it's very heavily focused on the defence industry. There's loads of procurement deals that we're expecting that are going to be announced.
- [07:52]
B
Yeah. And even though it's not supposed to be sort of part of NATO's remit, really, there's going to be an olive branch to the US's war in Iran in the text that comes out of the summit. So apparently the draft declaration is expected to say that Iran must never get a nuclear weapon, that the Strait of Hormuz, that crucial shipping route where 20% of the world's oil goes through, must stay open. And again, that's all about Trump wanting his allies to show support after really the embarrassment of them not backing his war in Iran. At the same time, it's still Trump and he's still volatile, right?
- [08:21]
A
Exactly. He can still blow everything up. And that's what people are afraid of. You know, we had this kind of near miss at the G7 leaders meeting recently where there was a lot of fear going into that, especially from Ukraine, that Trump might kind of show up and just berate everyone and demand all sorts of things and get into giant fights with people. That's now the fear has shifted to the NATO meeting and perhaps the stakes are even higher here because this is the alliance that underpins European security and it's also the alliance that Ukraine is looking to, to help underpin its security. So that's going to be kind of the key task for everyone there. It's to try to make sure that they keep Trump onside. And actually Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, he's expected in Ankara. Meant to be a big pledge of major military support for Ukraine for 2026. So it's a super important meeting for Ukraine, but that comes against the backdrop of these brutal Russian attacks on Kyiv over the past week or so. So it's a really key meeting for him.
- [09:23]
B
And on a slightly lighter side, I mean, this is still Politico. Our favorite thing about these big international summits is the interpersonal moments. Right. Remember, this is the same summit last year where we had Mark Rutter's infamous daddy moment, referring to Trump as Daddy. So let's see if there's a repeat of that.
- [09:37]
A
Who can forget?
- [09:39]
B
It's already kicking off. I mean, Trump has been posting online about Georgia Meloni after their spat at the G7 a couple of weeks ago, he said in a social media post that he needs to get a restraining order from her. So we're already keen to see how she responds to that one or how they look when they're in a room together.
- [09:54]
A
It'll be super interesting because those two can exchange hits on social media with the best of them. So we'll see what happens. All right, time for our last one, Katie. This one is going to be close to a lot of our listeners hearts. Brussels is trying to fix the new border system that has been leading to these long queues around airports in Europe over the past few months, since it got introduced before it ruins too many people's summer holidays.
- [10:25]
B
Have you taken the Eurostar recently?
- [10:27]
A
I haven't been on the Eurostar, I must admit, in a while. What kind of a situation are we talking about?
- [10:32]
B
I have the misfortune of having taken the Eurostar recently. No, it's just. It's exactly as we say. It's massive delays. Everything's very crowded. There's huge holdups because it's about entering and exiting the Schengen Zone. So it's to do a digital border check for non EU travellers. That's why the UK is part of it. They have to stop to be able to register their fingerprints, take a photo of their face. The idea is that it's supposed to catch criminals or people that are using fake documents or overstaying their visas. But as with most EU level technical rollouts, it's been a bit of a bumpy ride, as I've seen in the Eurostar. Huge queues, misconnections, lots of angry people.
- [11:06]
A
You might say it's hit some turbulence. Katie, bring in the dad.
- [11:12]
B
Jokes.
- [11:13]
A
If Ian's not here to do it, someone's got to do it, Katie.
- [11:17]
B
Someone's got to step up. You've got to be the Ian that we all need. And so the EU's trying to do something about this.
- [11:24]
A
That's right, yep. So this has been super interesting. So, on Friday, Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission president, kind of acknowledged that there was a problem. And that was quite an interesting thing, because up until that point, the commission had sort of been saying, oh, look, no, it's not that big of a problem, it's just isolated and there's only a few airports where it's a problem. Von der Leyen acknowledged, yeah, it is a problem. And actually, over the weekend, our colleague Gabriel Gavin got a bit of a scoop that Magnus Brunner, who's the Migration Commissioner, had written to airport and airline bosses saying the system needs to be kept in place because without it, it would be problem, but at the same time without causing undue discomfort for visitors. So he was kind of saying, look, get your act together now. There's kind of a. The thing continues because yesterday at the Commission's midday briefing, which is this daily briefing that it holds most of the time, not every single day, but most days, the commission was asked about this and the commission spokesperson said, yeah, look, there is an issue, but what we're going to allow member countries to do is request help from Frontex, which is the EU's border agency. And if airports are having trouble dealing with the volume of people getting through these airports, the Eurostar is perhaps another example, then frontech stuff can be deployed to help ease some of that load. So the idea is to make things a bit easier, more people to process these applications.
- [12:40]
B
That does seem like a new move, because until now it's been a bit of a blame game. Right. You've had people like Brunner kind of lightly blaming the industry and saying that it might be because airports don't have enough staff, that stuff hasn't been rolled out properly at national level, that it's basically anyone but the commission or the EU's fault. Whereas you've had industry talking about how serious the disruption is, and they've been asking for a suspension of the entire system for the whole of the summer season. So during July and August. So if the EU is moving on this now, it's new.
- [13:09]
A
Yeah. So we'll see what happens. There's actually going to be a meeting that's held later today with industry and they're going to try and figure it out. The EU officials are going to try and figure out what's needed and what can be done to ensure that the crucial summer break isn't ruined for everyone. Folks, if you've had any problems at the border, I'd like to hear whether things are getting better, whether they're getting worse. Write in link is in the show. Notes to our WhatsApp. Katie Last week we were speaking about the European Innovator Award, and we asked people to write in with their favorite European invention. And we got up some interesting ones. Antonius from Frankfurt wrote in and he reckons the letterpress, the car, the computer, MP3s, batteries, they were all kind of some of his favorite hits. But if you take food into account, the list becomes infinite. And his favorite European food invention is the Frankish Scheifeler, which is a type of Franconian roast pork shoulder. I. I don't know. I don't know. Antonius, you really. You're not selling me.
- [14:18]
B
I continue to be vegetarian. You continue to try and shove meat down my throat. On this podcast, Zoya, frankly, I feel attacked. And frankly, Antonius, I feel attacked by you, too. So who won this award anyway?
- [14:31]
A
Well, the people's choice was a Chinese inventor who came up with a new system for recycling batteries. But our listeners will be pleased to hear that the oat milk invention and the worm invention, which I was quite keen on, they both got some prizes in in their category. So all's well that ends well.
- [14:49]
B
Chapeau to the worm.
- [14:52]
A
All right, folks, that's it from US today. Rate us, review us, subscribe, and we'll see you tomorrow.