On July 9, 2025, 20 armed French police raided the offices of the Rassemblement National (RN), France’s far right party. Two judges had opened a case against the party a year before, after receiving a tip that individuals might have loaned it money illegally. Many on the left rejoiced at this new legal hurdle faced by the RN, which came only months after Marine Le Pen, the former party leader and three-time presidential hopeful, was sentenced to a five-year ineligibility sentence following a trial on the embezzlement of EU funds.
“Macron’s dissolution baffled many at the time.”
These relentless legal attacks, however, are not a good sign for the health of French democracy. They highlight how difficult it is to run an opposition party amid financial hurdles that undermine France’s parliamentary democracy.
President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly, France’s lower chamber of parliament, in a surprise move in June last year. The decision came minutes after the results of the European elections in France, where the RN surged, fueled by anger at the European Union, low voter turnout, and the proportional representation voting mechanism used in these elections. The RN secured 30 seats, far ahead of the center-right presidential coalition and center-left opposition, each with 13.
Macron’s dissolution baffled many at the time. The short time frame for legislative elections suggested his strategy was to undermine the left and boost the far right, as the left had only five days to find a common program and unite ahead of the elections. Miraculously, however, the four left-wing parties that had just fought a divisive EU campaign united. Although the RN scored its best results ever in that election, securing 143 seats in the National Assembly, it came in third behind the left and the presidential alliance, against all polls that predicted a RN win.
Since then, the RN have become kingmakers for Macron’s weak coalition of centrist and right-wing parties. The left has tabled 11 votes of no confidence since these elections, as Macron’s government lacks a majority in the National Assembly. One of those votes succeeded when the RN finally voted in favor, and the government led by Michel Barnier collapsed last December after just four months. Since then, the RN has given Prime Minister François Bayrou, who succeeded Barnier, the benefit of the doubt: His minority government passed a budget more than a month behind schedule, avoiding a shutdown using emergency legislation. The government has survived thanks to the good grace of the RN that has thus far refused to topple it.
The recent legal troubles of the RN are to be understood in this context. The RN is an opposition party, the third most significant force in the National Assembly (and the largest single party). It has recently toppled a government and can choose to do so again at any moment. On X, just after the latest raid on RN offices, the current RN leader Jordan Bardella immediately cried out that his party was being persecuted.
But the RN is not particularly targeted, and other parties are not immune to legal investigation. Just before Macron appointed him prime minister in December 2024, Bayrou narrowly avoided a condemnation for embezzlement on similar charges to the ones Marine Le Pen faced. Eight of Bayrou’s close collaborators were not so lucky and were sentenced to up to 18 months in prison. Likewise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise’s offices were raided in 2018 over the party’s alleged improper use of campaign funds during the 2017 elections. During the raid, Mélenchon fought off police officers, declaring “I am the Republic!” in front of cameras. He was later condemned to a suspended three-month prison sentence for his actions against police officers, but the original investigation into LFI’s campaign financing has yet to yield results. In other words, we are seeing a pattern of legal proceedings against political leaders, left, right, and center, not a persecution of the far right.
Rules around party finances in France are strict: Individuals may only donate up to about $9,000 a year to a party. In the European Parliament, there are strict restrictions on what parliamentary assistants may or may not do, limits that the RN ignored on multiple occasions. Given these restrictions and complex rules, it is unsurprising that political parties often cross legal lines. For the RN, it has proven excessively difficult to find banks willing to lend it money—an issue not faced by major established parties. The RN famously relied on loans from Russian banks in 2014 for its electoral financing after French banks refused to provide the loan. France’s two-round electoral system also made it extremely difficult for the RN to secure seats in the National Assembly before 2024. The RN fared much better in European elections and has had numerous MEPs for decades. Given its history as a Euroskeptic party, it is unsurprising that the RN would use its EU staff to subvert the European Parliament’s activities.
“France is plagued with a Bonapartist bias.”
Beyond the particularities of the RN, what is at stake is the ability of political parties, particularly opposition parties, to organize. Other parties have struggled with their finances recently. Valérie Pécresse, who was the presidential candidate for the center-right party Les Républicains (LR) in 2022, had to reimburse nearly $6 million after she failed to meet the 5 percent threshold in the first round of the election. Most of the repayment funds she managed to put together came from individual donations to her campaign. In 2017, the Socialist Party (PS) had to sell its historic headquarters, the luxurious Rue de Solférino offices it had acquired in 1980 just before François Mitterrand’s 1981 victory. At the time, the PS had just scored its lowest result in decades, losing a staggering 286 seats in the National Assembly. Even the old parties of power, the right LR and the left PS, faced considerable financial strain when they entered the opposition.
The complex rules favor the ruling parties. Able to raise money on financial markets through commercial banks, they can leverage their electoral victory to raise further funds. Meanwhile, the fragmentation of the political field has made it increasingly difficult to reach the 5 percent threshold needed to receive most state funding available to parties for elections. This has biased elections, allowing a few parties to spend lavishly, while smaller opposition parties face bankruptcy if they follow suit. France is plagued with a Bonapartist bias, a winner-takes-all model where the party of power gets the spoils and the rest must lick their wounds until the next election.
A more robust and democratic financial model can help restore the effectiveness of parliamentary democracy. The amounts spent by political parties on elections are not as astronomical as one might think. For instance, while the 2024 US election campaign cost around $21 billion ($120 per voter), France spent only about $170 million on its 2022 elections, averaging less than 3 euros, or $3.50, per voter, with most of that being state funded.
Instead of being tied to complex rules that require parties to form ad hoc alliances to meet reimbursement thresholds, this funding could be given directly to citizens, allowing them to allocate it to their preferred parties before elections. A more generous funding model, perhaps at 10 euros per voter, would eliminate the necessity for private financing and help democratise parliamentary life without overburdening the already indebted French state. This model would cost a fraction of the revenue that the solidarity tax on wealth used to generate before its abolition by Macron in 2017. Well-funded parties, financed through a wealth tax, would greatly enhance French democracy—and address concerns about lawfare against political parties across the spectrum.