Marine Le Pen brought the far right to France’s front door

PARIS (AP) — For years, Marine Le Pen stood at the gates of power — poised, relentless and rising. She stripped the French far right of its old symbols, sanded down its roughest edges and built in its place a sleek, disciplined machine with the single goal of winning the country's presidency.

In 2022, she came closer than anyone thought possible, winning more than 40% of the vote in the runoff against Emmanuel Macron. The Élysée Palace seemed within reach.

Now her political future may lay in ruins. On Monday, a French court convicted Le Pen of embezzling European Union funds and barred her from holding office for five years. The sentence may have done more than just potentially remove her from the next presidential race. It may have ended the most sustained far-right bid for power in Western Europe since World War II — surpassed only, in outcome, by Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.

But the political earthquake Le Pen set in motion will rumble for years to come.

Le Pen was born in 1968 into a family already on the fringes of French politics. In 1972, her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, founded the National Front party rooted in racism, antisemitism and a yearning for France's lost empire.

She was just 8 years old when a bomb destroyed the family’s apartment in Paris in what was widely seen as an assassination attempt on her father. No one was seriously hurt, but the blast marked her for life. She has said it gave her a lasting sense that her family was hated, and that they would never be treated like other people.

As a young woman, she studied law, became a defense attorney and learned how to argue her way through hostile rooms. In politics, she didn’t wait her turn. In 2011, she wrested control of the party from her father. In 2015, she expelled him after one of his Holocaust-denying tirades.

She renamed the party the National Rally. She replaced leather-jacketed radicals with tailored blazers and talking points. She talked less about race, more about the French way of life. She warned of “civilizational threats,” called for bans on headscarves and promised to put French families first.

Her tone changed. Her message didn’t.

In one of her sharpest political maneuvers, she sought out a group long despised by her father: the LGBTQ community. Le Pen filled her inner circle with openly gay aides, skipped public protests against same-sex marriage and framed herself as a protector of sexual minorities against “Islamist danger.”

Critics called it “pinkwashing” — a cosmetic tolerance masking deeper hostility. But it worked. A surprising number of gay voters, especially younger ones, started backing her. Many saw strength, clarity and the promise of order in a world spinning too fast.

She ran for president three times: 2012, 2017 and 2022. Each time, she climbed higher. In her final campaign, she was confident, calm and media savvy. She leaned into her role as a single mother, posed with her cats and repeated her calls for “national priority.” She no longer shocked. She convinced.

Behind her stood a constellation of far-right leaders cheering her on: Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni in Italy, the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders. They saw in her not only an ally, but a leader. Her mix of cultural nationalism, social media fluency and calculated restraint became a blueprint.

“Marine Le Pen posts pictures of her cat, talks about being a mother. But when it comes to policy, there’s no softening,” said Pierre Lefevre, a Paris-based consultant. “It makes extreme positions seem more palatable, even to people who might otherwise be put off.”

When Le Pen lost in 2022, she didn’t vanish. She regrouped, stayed present in parliament and prepared for 2027. Polls had her leading. Macron cannot run again.

Then came Monday's verdict.

The court found that Le Pen had siphoned off millions of euros in public funds while serving in the European Parliament, paying party staff with money intended for EU assistants. Prosecutors described it as deliberate and organized. The court agreed.

She was sentenced to two years of house arrest, fined €100,000 ($108,200) and banned from holding public office for five years. She said she would appeal. The house arrest sentence will be suspended during the appeal, but the ban on holding office takes effect immediately.

Her allies erupted in outrage. Orbán declared, “Je suis Marine” — I am Marine. Salvini called the ruling “a declaration of war by Brussels.” Meloni lamented it was “depriving millions of citizens of their representation.” U.S. President Donald Trump decried it as "a very big deal... it sounds like this country.” In Paris, her supporters called it political persecution. Her opponents fist-pumped in the streets.

Even in disgrace, Le Pen remains one of the most consequential political figures of her time. She took a name that once evoked hatred and transformed it into a serious vehicle for national leadership. She made the far right electable. She blurred the line between fringe and power.

Her party, the National Rally, became the largest last year in France’s lower house of parliament. Her handpicked successor, 29-year-old Jordan Bardella, now leads it. He is polished and popular, but he lacks broad political experience and name recognition.

Whether Le Pen returns after her ban, fades into silence or reinvents herself again, her mark is permanent. She forced mainstream rivals to adapt to her language. She turned fear into votes and redefined what was politically possible in a republic once seen as immune to extremism.

She never became president, but she changed the race and the rules.

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Associated Press journalist Colleen Barry in Milan contributed.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen leaves the National Rally headquarters after a French court convicted Marine Le Pen of embezzlement and barred her from seeking public office for five years, Monday, March 31, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen poses prior to an interview on the evening news broadcast of French TV channel TF1, after a French court convicted Marine Le Pen of embezzlement and barred her from seeking public office for five years, Monday, March 31, 2025, in Boulogne-Billancourt, outside Paris. (Thomas Samson, Pool via AP)

FILE - Leader of the French far right National Rally Marine Le Pen poses for a selfie with supporters during a meeting for the upcoming European elections in Henin-Beaumont, northern France, Friday, May 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

FILE - French far-right leader and presidential candidate Marine Le Pen addresses supporters during an election campaign rally in Nice, southern France, Thursday April 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Claude Paris, File)

FILE - Far-right National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen answers reporters after the second round of the legislative election, July 7, 2024, at the party election night headquarters in Paris. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte, File)

FILE - Honorary President of far-right party National Front Jean-Marie Le Pen, left, and his daughter French far-right leader and National Front Party candidate for the 2012 French presidential elections, Marine Le Pen, react during a campaign meeting, in Marseille, southern France, March 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Claude Paris, File)

FILE - French far right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen attends a party meeting in Nanterre, France, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon. File)

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand lawmakers dealt an overwhelming defeat Thursday to a controversial proposed law seeking to redefine the country’s founding treaty between Māori tribes and the British Crown.

The Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi bill was rejected by Parliament in a 112 to 11 vote in Wellington, halting its progress to a third and final vote. Cheers and applause erupted before lawmakers and the public sang a waiata — a traditional Māori song — after the result was announced.

The sweeping reinterpretation of the 1840 treaty signed by British representatives and 500 Māori chiefs during New Zealand’s colonization was never expected to become law. But the measures provoked a fraught debate about Indigenous rights and last November prompted the biggest race relations protest in the country’s history.

But its defeat did not spell the end for scrutiny of Māori rights in New Zealand law.

The Treaty guides the relationship between the government and Māori, with its meaning established through decades of legislation and court rulings. It promised tribes broad rights to retain their lands and protect their interests in return for ceding governance to the British.

But two versions of the document were signed – one in English and one in Māori — and while both promised Māori the rights and privileges of British citizens, the documents differed on what authority the chiefs were ceding. Crown breaches of both created steep disenfranchisement for Māori, who still face stark inequities.

Since an Indigenous protest movement surged in the 1970s, Treaty considerations have been a growing part of New Zealand law. Redress efforts have bolstered a dwindling Māori language and culture — now experiencing a resurgence — and resulted in billion-dollar settlements for stolen Māori land.

The bill sought to end the 185-year conversation about the Treaty’s meaning by enacting in law particular definitions for each clause and specifying that any rights should apply to all New Zealanders. Its author -- libertarian lawmaker David Seymour, who is Māori – has decried what he said were special rights and privileges on the basis of race.

In his speech to lawmakers Thursday, Seymour said New Zealanders should all have "the same rights and duties.”

He urged lawmakers outside his party to break ranks and endorse the bill. None did.

Parliamentary opposition leader Chris Hipkins lambasted the bill as “a stain on this country” and accused its supporters of spreading “the myth of Māori special privilege.” He cited the disadvantage of Māori on almost every metric — including higher rates of poverty and ill-health and lower life expectancy.

The Treaty of Waitangi “is not about racial privilege or racial superiority,” said opposition lawmaker Willie Jackson. “It is and always has been about legal rights Māori have in their contract with the Crown.”

Parliament received 300,000 written submissions from members of the public — more than a proposed law had ever received before — 90% of them opposed to the measures.

“This bill has been absolutely annihilated,” said Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke, an opposition lawmaker from Te Pāti Māori, the Māori political party.

Maipi-Clarke faces disciplinary proceedings at Parliament for her protest of the bill’s first vote last November, when she tore up a copy of the measures while performing a haka — a Māori chant of challenge — as she and colleagues walked towards Seymour. The lawmakers refused to attend a hearing on their conduct this month, because they said Parliament does not respect tikanga — Māori cultural protocols.

Despite its unpopularity, the proposed law passed its first vote due to a quirk of New Zealand’s political system that allows tiny parties to negotiate outsized influence for their agendas.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon agreed his lawmakers would endorse the bill at its first reading to fulfil a political deal with Seymour that handed Luxon power. Without enough seats to govern after the 2023 election, Luxon negotiated support from two minor parties, including Seymour's, in return for political concessions.

They included Luxon's early support for the Treaty Principles bill, although the New Zealand leader always said he would later oppose it. Luxon's opponents on Thursday derided his political dealings.

The Treaty Principles Bill was not the only measure Luxon agreed to that will scrutinize the Treaty’s influence on New Zealand law and policy. Another of Seymour's initiatives, already enacted, directed public agencies to stop targeting policies to specifically redress Māori inequities.

Luxon also agreed to consider and either replace or repeal mentions of the Treaty of Waitangi throughout most New Zealand laws.

A student opposing the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill sits outside New Zealand's Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand, Thursday, April 10, 2025.(AP Photo/ Charlotte Graham-McLay)