Could a reprieve be in the cards for the leader of France’s rightist movement, Marine Le Pen? Two possibilities — which could yet prove illusory — are coming into view after a judge on Monday convicted the head of the National Rally on charges of embezzlement. The conviction raised concerns among critics, including these columns, that the epidemic of the American disease of lawfare was washing up on the shores of La Belle France.

President Trump on Friday morning spoke in defense of Madame Le Pen, calling the charges against her a “Witch Hunt” and “another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech, and censor their Political Opponent.” It’s no wonder the case against the French rightist struck a nerve with Mr. Trump, himself a victim of lawfare. The Le Pen prosecution reflects “the same ‘playbook’ that was used against me,” he laments.

Madame Le Pen had run afoul of the law, in a mildly ironique twist for a critic of the European Union, for misusing funds earmarked for EU parliament members on her own party’s activities. Even the leftists at Jacobin caution that this attempt to sideline Madame Le Pen via the courts could backfire. The magazine’s David Broder warns that “banning candidates from running for office due to financial crimes is highly dubious.”

Madame Le Pen is putting up a brave front. “The system has pulled out the nuclear bomb,” she averred, “because we’re about to win the election.” Yet the judge’s ruling, at least for now, bars her from running in 2027 for the presidency. She mooted concerns of a conspiracy, adding: “They’re thinking that everything they’ve put in place hasn’t worked and that maybe we need to move up a gear. So things are clear, we won’t let ourselves be pushed around.”

To that end, Madame Le Pen appeared to pour eau froid on one avenue for her vindication — a pardon from her bête noire, President Macron. A top official from the Sarkozy administration, Henri Guaino, had issued what he called “a solemn call” to Monsieur le Président. “The solution,” he said, “which is legally perfectly acceptable, which is constitutional, this solution is called article seventeen of the constitution, the right of pardon.”

In Monsieur Guaino’s telling, “thousands” have gotten pardons, among them “murderers and drug traffickers who had committed far worse things than Ms Le Pen.” Madame Le Pen, though, denied that she would request a pardon. “Let’s be clear,” she rumbled. “I am eliminated, but in reality, it’s millions of French people whose voices have been eliminated. I’m not going to submit to a democratic denial so easily.”

Zut alors. Madame Le Pen’s other path out of political perdition is via the courts, which yesterday offered the rightist a lifeline of sorts. The appeals court at Paris, the Financial Times reports, said “it would aim to have the appeal decided during the summer of 2026.” That would give Madame Le Pen, if her appeal proved to be un succès, time to rejoin the presidential hustings. She is also, in another twist, weighing a plea to the European Court of Human Rights.

“I will use all possible avenues of appeal,” she avers. Plus, too, in the event that the conviction is upheld, her No. 2 at the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, stands at the ready. To the NR’s credit, the party is disavowing any extralegal antics in its defense, the FT reports, fearing that would “turn off the swing voters they need to win a two-round presidential election.” The party vows a course of civil disobedience à la Martin Luther King, its Philippe Olivier says.

The attempt to sideline a leading candidate for the presidency, as these columns have marked, is shaping up as a test for the health of France’s democracy. The French, it would seem, would benefit from heeding the advice of Monsieur Guaino, who urges his countrymen to “look at what’s happening in the United States: When the justice system comes into violent conflict with politics or society, it’s the justice system that loses.”

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This editorial was updated to include remarks made, after our bulldog edition, by President Trump.