\n<\/p>\n
When the verdict from a Paris criminal court flashed across screens in H\u00e9nin-Beaumont, many customers in the Caf\u00e9 de la Paix received it with the outrage and disappointment Marine Le Pen predicted.<\/p>\n
The far-right political leader was found guilty of embezzlement<\/a>, sentenced to four years in prison \u2014 two years suspended, two in a form of house arrest \u2014 and fined more than $100,000.<\/p>\n But most stinging was the decision barring her from running for public office for five years, rendering her ineligible to run in France\u2019s 2027 presidential election.<\/p>\n For people here, Ms. Le Pen is not just the leader of the National Rally, and three-time presidential candidate. She is their local lawmaker in the lower house of Parliament.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI am disgusted,\u201d said Jean-Marc Sergheraert, 70, a retired charity manager, craning up at a big television screen. There, Ms. Le Pen was denouncing the decision as politically motivated and unjust because, she said, her sentence would be enforced even as she appealed it, which is often not the case in France.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cShe is right,\u201d added Mr. Sergheraert. \u201cShe must defend herself and go right to the end. If they want us to take the Capitol like they did in Washington, I will go to the \u00c9lys\u00e9e,\u201d he said, referring to the presidential palace in Paris.<\/p>\n Nearby, Arlette Banderlique, 86, concurred over her flute of light beer. \u201cForbidding French to do something just pushes us more to do it,\u201d she said. \u201cShe will get millions more votes.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Le Pen said she would appeal the ruling, though it would be difficult to resolve her challenge in time for 2027. She was convicted of diverting European Parliament funds to her party.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThis decision should disgust everyone. It\u2019s totally arbitrary,\u201d said Steeve Briois, the National Rally mayor of H\u00e9nin-Beaumont, handing out fliers encouraging locals to stand up, peacefully, against \u201cthose who would circumvent democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n If any place in France would shake with fury over the ruling, it would be H\u00e9nin-Beaumont, a town of 26,000 in France\u2019s northern former industrial heartland, ravaged first by coal mines closing in the 1980s and then by many factories closing, victims of globalization.<\/p>\n The unemployment rate in the area was more than double the national average in 2021, the last census.<\/p>\n Considering this \u201cforgotten territory,\u201d Ms. Pen\u2019s party has made this one of its strongholds. <\/span>Though she has never lived in the region, Ms. Le Pen chose it as her political heartland, running first in 1998, and continuing to represent the area in regional and European politics. In 2017, she successfully campaigned for a seat in the National Assembly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n During the last presidential election in 2022, she garnered 67 percent of the local vote. In legislative elections last summer, many locally expected her party to win in a landslide, and run the government. Instead, a left-wing coalition and President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s ruling party formed a \u201cdam\u201d<\/a> by asking candidates in runoffs around the country to form a single anti-National Rally vote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Still, in H\u00e9nin-Beaumont Ms. Le Pen won re-election in the first round by a large margin.<\/p>\n \u201cThey want to eliminate her from the presidency,\u201d said Karen Huret, 57, arriving Tuesday morning to the market to pick up supplies for her elderly mother. \u201cLast time, they used the dam. This is another tactic.\u201d<\/p>\n For many locals, fidelity to Ms. Le Pen\u2019s party is less ideological than an appreciating her party\u2019s retail politics. They cite the new aquatic center in town and the Christmas market. They feel respected by her and the party.<\/p>\n \u201cShe is nice. I took photos of her with my kids at the flea market,\u201d said Ms. Huret, a stay-at-home mom. \u201cI don\u2019t believe she is racist. I\u2019m from the inner-city \u2014 I believe everyone should be respected.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The town had a history of corruption preceding Ms. Le Pen\u2019s conviction. The Socialist former mayor, G\u00e9rard Dalongeville, was convicted of stealing 4 million euros with phony invoices and sentenced to four years in prison. For some locals, the latest court ruling deepened their cynicism.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had Communists, Socialists, the National Rally \u2014 they are all the same,\u201d said Mohamed Oussedrat, 60, enjoying a diabolo menthe at a bar, after his shift working maintenance at a hospital.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Marine Tondelier, an elected councilor in H\u00e9nin-Beaumont and leader of the national Green Party took to the news channels to point out that the National Rally calls for strict law enforcement and tougher sentences \u2014 except, it seemed, when it came to its own members.<\/p>\n \u201cIt shows you their hypocrisy,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve been hearing about \u2018systems put in place against them.\u2019 The only system put in place is the one they set to divert public funds.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n She was not the only one in town who thought that way \u2014 though perhaps in a more quiet tone.<\/p>\n \u201cShe denigrates foreigners all the time. She says they don\u2019t respect the law,\u201d said Karim Zoui, 29. \u201cWell, there you go. She doesn\u2019t respect the law.\u201d<\/p>\n Then he used a term often applied by the far right to migrants \u2014 voyou<\/em>, or thug.<\/p>\n \u201cIf they are thugs,\u201d he said, \u201cthey should pay.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n