PARIS — Marine Le Pen recent public statements seem to indicate that she’s losing faith in her effort to quash the five-year election ban standing in the way of her becoming France’s next president. In her latest comments Tuesday, outside the gilded Parisian courtroom where she has been appealing since January an embezzlement conviction that knocked her out of the 2027 election, Le Pen told reporters: “I never expect a good surprise when I step into a courtroom.” But, she added: “I am a believer. I still believe in miracles.” The dour pessimism in those and similar comments is striking coming from a leader who had vowed to fight what she framed as politically motivated hit job. Le Pen even held a Stop-the-Steal-type rally last year after she and her codefendants were found guilty of misappropriating €4 million of European Parliament funds. But as the months have dragged on, Le Pen has seemed increasingly resigned, recognizing that her shot at the French presidency is slipping away just as her party, the National Rally, is enjoying an historic surge in popularity. Nonetheless, it’s possible the doom and gloom are all part of her strategy to express more contrition to get a more favorable verdict. Whatever it is, Le Pen has presented this appeal as her last chance to mount a bid for the Elysée Palace and acknowledged publicly that she may be forced to step aside in favor of her 30-year-old protégé, Jordan Bardella.  Tuesday’s sentencing recommendations appeared to confirm her suspicions at first.  Prosecutors asked the court to uphold her five-year electoral ban, but in an unexpected twist, argued against its immediate implementation.  Should the court agree, it offers Le Pen a small glimmer of hope. But it’s a legally complex and politically risky path back into the race, and one that Le Pen herself appears to be placing little hope in.  WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH IMMEDIATE IMPLEMENTATION?  In French criminal law, penalties are typically lifted when a defendant appeals a verdict to a higher court.   Part of the reason Le Pen’s initial sentence drew so much backlash is prosecutors argued — and the judges agreed — that her crimes were so grave that her ban on running for public office should be handed down immediately, regardless of whether she appeals.  But during the appeal the prosecution did not recommend immediate implementation because there was insufficient proof that Le Pen could commit further crimes if she is not sanctioned immediately.  SO, CAN LE PEN RUN FOR PRESIDENT?   In theory, if the appeals court rules in a manner that bars Le Pen from running in 2027 but does not order immediate implementation, she could appeal again to an even higher court — thereby lifting her ban temporarily. She would then need to hope that the gears of the justice system grind slowly enough to push the issue past the next election. But it’s not clear cut. Some French legal scholars have debated if and how a new appeal would lift her electoral ban at all. Le Pen has said she will make a final call once there is a verdict in the current appeal. She has also said she would drop out of the running if the electoral ban is upheld to avoid the risk of having the National Rally run its presidential campaign with no guarantee of who the candidate would be until the last minute — an ignominious end to a career dedicated to dragging her far-right party from the political fringes into the mainstream. It is unclear if a ban without immediate implementation, as sought by the prosecutors, changes her reasoning — but her comments to French broadcaster TF1-LCI after the prosecutors made their recommendation seemed to indicate that she’d still rule herself out in that eventuality. “If the prosecutors’ recommendations are followed, I won’t be able to run,” she said. Le Pen now has to hope that she’ll be acquitted, which appears unlikely, or that the case’s three-judge panel reduces or scraps her electoral ban. The judges are under no obligation to follow the prosecution’s recommendations. WHEN WILL THIS BE RESOLVED? The judges hearing the case are expected to render a verdict before the summer.   The Cour de Cassation, which would take up any ensuing appeal, has said it would aim to examine the case and issue a final ruling before the 2027 election “if possible.” 

PARIS — French prosecutors on Tuesday recommended that a five-year electoral ban on far-right leader Marine Le Pen should be confirmed — a move that, if accepted by the court, would likely prevent her from running in next year’s presidential election. Le Pen’s far-right National Rally is comfortably ahead in polls ahead of the first round of the 2027 election but she is currently looking unlikely to be able to stand as the presidential candidate herself thanks to a five-year election ban, imposed over her conviction last year for embezzling European Parliament funds — a ban she is now appealing. In that appeal proceeding on Tuesday, the prosecutors sought not only the electoral prohibition but four years jail, with one served as a custodial sentence. In an unexpected twist, however, prosecutors did not insist that the ban should be immediately implemented. This could offer her a theoretical long-shot back into the race, but it appears legally complex and politically risky. Le Pen herself did not signal any major shift in the case. In remarks to BFMTV, Le Pen said the prosecution in the appeal was “following the path taken” during the first trial. The court is due to make a final decision on the appeal this summer. When it came to her narrow route back to the presidential race, the prosecutors said the court should not impose the five-year ban immediately because there was insufficient proof that the three-time presidential candidate could commit further crimes if she is not sanctioned immediately. This means that, even if found guilty at appeal, Le Pen could still try to have the penalty lifted by bringing the case before a supreme court. The supreme court which would look into the case, the Cour de Cassation, said it would examine the legal challenge and make a final ruling before the 2027 election “if possible.” That timing could be politically problematic for Le Pen, if the supreme court does not come to a decision until shortly before the race. Le Pen had said she would drop out of the running if her electoral ban was upheld. It is unclear if a ban without immediate implementation, as sought by the prosecutors, would now change her reasoning. Le Pen has been increasingly expected to be replaced by her 30-year-old protégé Jordan Bardella because of her legal woes. Although he originally triggered doubts within his own political camp on his ability to stand the rigors of a presidential election, he has surpassed Le Pen as France’s most popular politician according to recent polling. Le Pen has already run for president three times, making the runoff in the last two elections and losing to Emmanuel Macron. The 2027 election is widely seen as the best shot yet for a National Rally candidate to win and become the first democratically elected far-right leader in France since World War II. Le Pen has shifted her defense strategy since the start of her appeal trial, with a partial acknowledgement that some wrongdoing may have been committed unintentionally. The National Rally has described the case as politicized. Le Pen and her co-defendants are accused of having embezzled funds from the European Parliament by having party staff hired as parliamentary assistants, while working solely on domestic affairs rather than legislative work.

PARIS — The French state budget for 2026 officially passed through parliament on Monday, ending a months-long deadlock that had increased fears of a debt crisis in the European Union’s second-largest economy. After months of cross-party negotiations failed to yield consensus, center-right Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu activated a constitutional clause that allows the government to pass legislation without a vote in parliament. The use of that clause, however, allows lawmakers to put forward motions of no confidence, which, if passed, lead to the bill’s defeat and force the government to resign. Lecornu’s minority government survived several no-confidence votes put forward by left-wing and far-right groups. His survival came down to a decision by the center-left Socialist Party not to join their former allies on the left in voting against Lecornu, in exchange for government concessions including €1 lunches for university students. Lecornu had initially aimed to pass a budget that would bring France’s 2026 deficit to 4.7 percent of gross domestic product, but policy requests granted to various political groups bumped that figure to about 5 percent of GDP, per the government’s most recent estimate. To avoid a U.S.-style shutdown after failing to finalize fiscal plans before the new year, last year’s budget was rolled over into January. The 2026 budget is expected to take effect shortly after receiving a green light from France’s Constitutional Court, which will proceed imminently with a routine legal review.

Want to get a sense of how the next French presidential vote will play out? Then pay attention to the upcoming local elections. They start in 50 days, and voters in more than 35,000 communes will head to the polls to elect city councils and mayors. Those races will give an important insight into French politics running into the all-important 2027 presidential contest that threatens to reshape both France and the European Union.  The elections, which will take place over two rounds on March 15 and March 22, will confirm whether the far-right National Rally can cement its status as the country’s predominant political force. They will also offer signs of whether the left is able to overcome its internal divisions to be a serious challenger. The center has to prove it’s not in a death spiral. POLITICO traveled to four cities for an on-the-ground look at key races that will be fought on policy issues that resonate nationally such as public safety, housing, climate change and social services. These are topics that could very well determine the fortunes of the leading parties next year. FRANCE IN MINIATURE Benoit Payan, Franck Allisio, Martine Vassal and Sébastien Delogu | Source photos via EPA and Getty Images MARSEILLE — France’s second city is a microcosm of the nationwide electoral picture. Marseille’s sprawl is comprised of poorer, multicultural areas, middle-to-upper-class residential zones and bustling, student-filled districts. All make up the city’s unique fabric. Though Marseille has long struggled with crime, a surge in violence tied to drug trafficking in the city and nationwide has seen security rocket up voters’ priority list. In Marseille, as elsewhere, the far right has tied the uptick in violence and crime to immigration. The strategy appears to be working. Recent polling shows National Rally candidate Franck Allisio neck-and-neck with incumbent Benoît Payan, who enjoys the support of most center-left and left-wing parties. Trailing them are the center-right hopeful Martine Vassal — who is backed by French President Emmanuel Macron’s party Renaissance — and the hard-left France Unbowed candidate Sébastien Delogu, a close ally of three-time presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Those four candidates are all polling well enough to make the second round. That could set up an unprecedented and unpredictable four-way runoff to lead the Mediterranean port city of more than 850,000 people. A National Rally win here would rank among the biggest victories in the history of the French far right. Party leader Marine Le Pen traveled to Marseille herself on Jan. 17 to stump for Allisio, describing the city as a “a symbol of France’s divisions” and slamming Payan for “denying that there is a connection between immigration and insecurity.” Party leader Marine Le Pen traveled to Marseille herself on Jan. 17 to stump for Allisio. | Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images The center-right candidate Vassal told POLITICO said she would increase security by recruiting more local police and installing video surveillance. But she also regretted that Marseille was so often represented by its struggles. “We’re always making headlines on problems like drug trafficking … It puts all the city’s assets and qualities to the side and erases everything else which goes on,” Vassal said. Payan, whose administration took over in 2020 after decades of conservative rule, has tried to tread a line that is uncompromising on policing while also acknowledging the roots of the city’s problems require holistic solutions. He’s offered to double the number of local cops as part of a push for more community policing and pledged free meals for 15,000 students to get them back in school. Marseille’s sprawl is comprised of poorer, multicultural areas, middle-to-upper-class residential zones and bustling, student-filled districts. All make up the city’s unique fabric. | Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images Delogu is the only major candidate not offering typical law-and-order investments. Though he acknowledges the city’s crime problems, he proposes any new spending should be on poverty reduction, housing supply and the local public health sector rather than of more security forces and equipment. Crime is sure to dominate the debate in Marseille. This election will test which of these competing approaches resonates most in a country where security is increasingly a top concern. LATEST POLLING: Payan 30 percent – Allisio 30 percent- Vassal 23 percent – Delogu 14 percent CAN A UNITED LEFT BLOCK A FAR-RIGHT TAKEOVER? Julien Sanchez, Franck Proust and Julien Plantier | Source photos via Getty Images NÎMES — Nîmes’ stunningly well-preserved second-century Roman amphitheater attracts global superstars for blockbuster concerts. But even the glamour of Taylor Swift or Dua Lipa can’t hide the recent scares in this city of more than 150,000 people. Nîmes has in recent years suffered from violence tied to drug trafficking long associated with Marseille, located just a short train ride away. Pissevin, a high-rise neighborhood just a 15-minute streetcar ride from the landmark amphitheater, seized national headlines in 2024 when 10-year-old was killed by a stray bullet in a case that remains under investigation but which prosecutors believe was linked to drug trafficking. “Ten to 15 years ago, a lot of crime came from petty theft and burglaries. But some of the population in underprivileged areas, looking for economic opportunities, turned to the drug trade, which offered a lot more money and the same amount of prison time if they were caught,” said Salim El Jihad, a Nîmes resident who leads the local nongovernmental organization Suburban. The Nimes amphitheatre and Pissevin / Source photos via Getty Images The National Rally is betting on Nîmes as a symbolic pickup. The race is shaping up to be a close three-way contest between Communist Vincent Bouget, the National Rally’s Julien Sanchez and conservative Franck Proust, Nîmes’ deputy mayor from 2016 to 2020. Bouget — who is backed by most other left-wing parties, including moderate forces like the Socialist Party — told POLITICO that while security is shaping up to be a big theme in the contest, it raises “a broader question around social structures.” “What citizens are asking for is more human presence, including public services and social workers,” Bouget said. Whoever wins will take the reins from Jean-Paul Fournier, the 80-year-old conservative mayor who has kept Nîmes on the right without pause for the past quarter century. But Fournier’s decision not to seek another term and infighting within his own party, Les Républicains, have sharply diminished Proust’s chances of victory. Proust may very well end splitting votes with Julien Plantier, another right-leaning former deputy mayor, who has the support of Macron’s Renaissance. Sanchez, meanwhile, is appealing to former Fournier voters with pledges to bolster local police units and with red scare tactics. “Jean-Paul Fournier managed to keep this city on the right for 25 years,” Sanchez said in his candidacy announcement clip. “Because of the stupidity of his heirs, there’s a strong chance the communists and the far left could win.” LATEST POLLING: Bouget 28 percent – Sanchez 27 percent- Proust 22 percent THE LAST GREEN HOPE That was also a clear swipe at Pierre Hurmic’s main opponent — pro-Macron centrist Thomas Cazenave — who spent a year as budget minister from 2023 to 2024. | Source photos via Getty Images BORDEAUX — Everyone loves a Bordeaux red. So can a Green really last in French wine country? Pierre Hurmic rode the green wave to Bordeaux city hall during France’s last nationwide municipal elections in 2020. That year the Greens, which had seldom held power other than as a junior coalition partner, won the race for mayor in three of France’s 10 most populous cities — Strasbourg, Lyon and Bordeaux — along with smaller but noteworthy municipalities including Poitiers and Besançon. Six years later, the most recent polling suggests the Greens are on track to lose all of them. Except Bordeaux. Green mayors have faced intense scrutiny over efforts to make cities less car-centric and more eco-friendly, largely from right-wing opponents who depict those policies as out of touch with working-class citizens who are priced out of expensive city centers and must rely on cars to get to their jobs. The view from Paris is that Hurmic has escaped some of that backlash by being less ideological and, crucially, adopting a tougher stance on crime than some of his peers. Notably, Hurmic decided to arm part of the city’s local police units — departing from some of his party’s base, which argues that firearms should be reserved for national forces rather than less-experienced municipal units. In an interview with POLITICO, Hurmic refused to compare himself to other Green mayors. He defended his decision to double the number of local police, alongside those he armed, saying it had led to a tangible drop in crime. “Everyone does politics based on their own temperament and local circumstances,” he said. Hurmic insists that being tough on crime doesn’t mean going soft on climate change. He argues the Greens’ weak polling wasn’t a backlash against local ecological policies, pointing to recent polling showing 63 percent of voters would be “reluctant to vote for a candidate who questions the ecological transition measures already underway in their municipality.” Pursuing a city’s transition on issues like mobility and energy is all the more necessary because at the national level, “the state is completely lacking,” Hurmic said, pointing to what he described as insufficient investment in recent budgets. That was also a clear swipe at his main opponent — pro-Macron centrist Thomas Cazenave — who spent a year as budget minister from 2023 to 2024. Cazenave has joined forces with other center-right and conservative figures in a bid to reclaim a city that spent 73 years under right-leaning mayors, two of whom served as prime minister — Alain Juppé and Jacques Chaban-Delmas. But according Ludovic Renard, a political scientist at the Bordeaux Institute of Political Science, Hurmic’s ascent speaks to how the city has changed. “The sociology of the city is no longer the same, and Hurmic’s politics are more in tune with its population,” said Renard. LATEST POLLING: Hurmic 32 percent – Cazenave 26 percent – Nordine Raymond (France Unbowed) 15 percent – Julie Rechagneux (National Rally) 13 percent – Philippe Dessertine (independent) 12 percent GENTRIFICATION AND THE FUTURE OF THE LEFT Mayor Karim Bouamrane, a Socialist, has said the arrival of new, wealthier residents and the ensuing gentrification could be a net positive for the city, as long as “excellence is shared.” | Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty Images SAINT-OUEN-SUR-SEINE — The future of the French left could be decided on the grounds of the former Olympic village. The Parisian suburb of Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, which borders the French capital, is a case study in the waves of gentrification that have transformed the outskirts of major European cities. Think New York’s Williamsburg, London’s Hackney or Berlin’s Neukölln. Saint-Ouen, as it’s usually called, has long been known for its massive flea market, which draws millions of visitors each year. But the city, particularly its areas closest to Paris, was long seen as unsafe and struggled with entrenched poverty. The future of the French left could be decided on the grounds of the former Olympic village. | Mustafa Yalcin/Anadolu via Getty Images That changed over time, as more affluent Parisians began moving into the well-connected suburb in search of cheaper rents or property. A 2023 report from the local court of auditors underlined that “the population of this rapidly growing municipality … has both a high poverty rate (28 percent) and a phenomenon of ‘gentrification’ linked to the rapid increase in the proportion of executives and higher intellectual professions.” Mayor Karim Bouamrane, a Socialist, has said the arrival of new, wealthier residents and the ensuing gentrification could be a net positive for the city, as long as “excellence is shared.” Bouamrane has also said he would continue pushing for the inclusion of social housing when issuing building permits, and for existing residents not to be displaced when urban renewal programs are put in place. His main challenger, France Unbowed’s Manon Monmirel, hopes to build enough social housing to make it 40 percent of the city’s total housing stock. She’s also pledged to crack down on real estate speculation. The race between the two could shed light on whether the future of the French left lies in the center or at the extremes. In Boumrane, the Socialists have a charismatic leader. He is 52 years old, with a beat-the-odds story that lends itself well to a national campaign. His journey from child of Moroccan immigrants growing up in a rough part of Saint-Ouen to city leader certainly caught attention of the foreign press in the run-up to the Olympics. Bouamrane’s moderate politics include a push for his party to stop fighting Macron’s decision to raise the retirement age in 2023 and he supports more cross-partisan work with the current center-right government. That approach stands in sharp contrast to the ideologically rigid France Unbowed. The party’s firebrand leader Mélenchon scored 51.82 percent of the vote in Saint-Ouen during his last presidential run in 2022, and France Unbowed landed over 35 percent — more than three times its national average — there in the European election two years later, a race in which it usually struggles. Mélenchon and France Unbowed’s campaign tactics are laser-focused on specific segments that support him en masse despite his divisive nature: a mix of educated, green-minded young voters and working-class urban populations, often of immigrant descent. In other words: the yuppies moving to Saint-Ouen and the people who were their before gentrification. France Unbowed needs their continued support to become a durable force, or it may crumble like the grassroots movements born in the early 2010s, including Spain’s Podemos or Greece’s Syriza. But if the Socialists can’t win a left-leaning suburb with a popular incumbent on the ballot, where can they win?

PARIS — The French government survived two no-confidence votes over its fiscal plans Friday, moving one step closer to finally adopting a proper state budget for the year. The motion of no confidence put forward by the far-left France Unbowed was backed by 269 MPs — 19 votes short of passing— while the far-right National Rally’s version netted support from a mere 142 lawmakers. The two parties attempted to bring down Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s government following his decision to use a constitutional backdoor to pass France’s 2026 budget after lawmakers failed to approve one before the end of 2025. That maneuver, Article 49.3 of the constitution, allows the government to ram through legislation without a vote but in turn gives opposition lawmakers the opportunity to respond by putting forward a no-confidence vote. Lecornu triggered that measure on Tuesday to pass the part of the budget that concerns raising revenue. He is expected to use it again Friday to pass the final part of the budget concerning government expenditures. Lecornu had been expected to survive, as the political extremes do not have enough lawmakers among themselves to bring down the government. The more centrist Socialists, who have played a kingmaker role during the prime minister’s tenure, did not try to topple the government after Lecornu offered them several last-minute budgetary concessions. France is under pressure from financial markets and international institutions to cut a budget deficit that came in at 5.4 percent of GDP last year and debt that is projected to go up to 118.2 percent of GDP in 2026, according to the government’s forecast. The country’s hung parliament was, for a second year in a row, unable to craft a state budget on its own despite Lecornu’s pledge to let lawmakers search for a consensus. They did, however, agree to a deal on funding the country’s social security system. Without proper plans in place, lawmakers were forced to roll over the 2025 budget into the new year until proper fiscal plans could be finalized. Lecornu said last week he would use Article 49.3 to enact a budget despite having ruled that option out in October. The 2026 budget being enacted is projected to carry a deficit of 5 percent of GDP and remains under excessive deficit procedure from the European Commission. Paris has pledged to bring the figure below 3 percent of GDP, as required by EU rules, by 2029.

BERLIN — As Europe’s traditional Franco-German engine splutters, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is increasingly looking to team up with hard-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as his co-pilot in steering the EU. The two are set to meet at a summit in the opulent Villa Doria Pamphilj in Rome on Friday to double down on their budding alliance. They are both right-wing Atlanticists who want to cool tensions with U.S. President Donald Trump. And they both have their frustrations with French President Emmanuel Macron. In years past, Germany would traditionally have turned to France at decisive moments to map out blueprints for the EU, so it’s significant that Merz is now aligning with Meloni in his attempt to drive forward core European priorities on trade and industry. In part, Merz’s gravitation toward Meloni is driven by annoyance with France. Berlin is irritated that Paris sought to undermine the landmark Mercosur trade deal with South America, which the Germans have long wanted in order to promote industrial exports. Germany is also considering pulling out of a €100 billion joint fighter-jet program over disputes with the French. Against that backdrop, the alignment with Rome has a compelling logic. During Friday’s meeting, Merz and Meloni are expected to sign up to cooperation on defense, according to diplomats involved in the preparations. It’s not clear what that involves, but Germany’s Rheinmetall and Italy’s Leonardo already have a joint venture to build tanks and other military vehicles. Perhaps most ambitiously, Italy and Germany are also teaming up to draft a new game plan to revive EU industry and expand exports in a joint position paper for the Feb. 12 European Council summit. Berlin and Rome style themselves as the “two main industrial European nations” and have condemned delays to the Mercosur agreement. That language will grate in Paris. IN FOR THE LONG HAUL For Giangiacomo Calovini, a lawmaker from Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, who heads the parliament’s Italian-German friendship group, the Merz-Meloni alliance makes sense given Macron’s impending departure from the European stage after next year’s French election. “[Our] two countries have stable governments, especially if compared with France’s,” he said. “It is clear that Meloni and Merz still probably have a long path ahead of them, during which they can work together.” Safeguarding the relationship with Trump is crucial to both leaders, and both Merz and Meloni have sought to avoid transatlantic blow-ups. They have been supported in their firefighting by their foreign ministers, Johann Wadephul and Antonio Tajani. “Giorgia Meloni and Friedrich Merz have represented the European wing most open to dialogue with President Trump,” said Pietro Benassi, former Italian ambassador to Berlin and the EU. “The somewhat surreal acceleration [of events] driven by the American president is confirming a convergence in the positions of Italy and Germany, rather than between Italy and France, or France and Germany.” In contrast to the softly-softly approach in Rome and Berlin, Calovini accused Macron of unhelpfully “contradictory” behavior toward Trump. “He acts as the one who wants to challenge the United States of America but then sends texts — that Trump has inelegantly published — in which he begs Trump to have dinner,” he complained. GOOD CHEMISTRY Officials in Berlin now privately gush over the growing cooperation with Meloni, describing the relationship with Rome as dependable. “Italy is reliable,” said one senior German government official, granted anonymity to speak candidly. It’s not an adjective authorities in Berlin have often used to describe their French counterparts of late. “France is more verbal, but Italy is much more pragmatic,” said Axel Schäfer, a senior lawmaker in Germany’s Social Democratic Party long focused on German-Italian relations. An Italian official also praised the “good chemistry” between Merz and Meloni personally. That forms a marked contrast with the notoriously strained relations between Meloni and Macron, who have frequently clashed. In their effort to draw closer, Merz and Meloni have at times resorted to hyperbole. During his inaugural visit to Rome as chancellor last year, Merz said there was “practically complete agreement between our two countries on all European policy issues.” Meloni returned the sentiment. “It is simply impossible to cast doubt on the relations between Italy and Germany,” she said at the time. MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE That is overegging it. The two leaders, in fact, have considerable differences. Meloni refused to support an ultimately doomed plan, pushed by Merz, to use frozen Russian assets to finance military aid for Ukraine. Meloni also briefly withheld support for the Mercosur trade deal in order to win concessions for Italian farmers before ultimately backing it. Critically, Rome and Berlin are likely to prove very awkward allies when it comes to public finances. Italy has long pushed for looser European fiscal policy — and been a natural ally of France on this point — while Germany has served as the continent’s iron disciplinarian on spending. But even here there has been some convergence, with Meloni cutting Italy’s spending and Merz presiding over a historic expansion in debt-fueled outlays on infrastructure and defense. Fundamentally, much of the growing alliance between Merz and Meloni is a product of shifts undertaken for their own domestic political survival. Meloni has dragged her nationalist Brothers of Italy party to the center, particularly on foreign policy matters. At the same time, the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Germany has forced Merz to shift his conservative party sharply to the right on migration.     This ideological merging has allowed for a warming of relations. As Merz has sought partners on the European level to drastically reduce the inflow of asylum seekers coming to Europe, to reduce regulation and to push for more trade — and provide a counterbalance to Macron — Meloni has become an increasingly important figure for the chancellor. Still, Stefano Stefanini, a former senior Italian diplomat and NATO representative, said there would always be limits to the relationship. “It’s very tactical,” he said. “There’s no coordinated strategy. There are a number of issues on which Meloni and Merz find themselves on the same side.” Stefanini also noted that spending commitments — particularly on military projects — would be an area where Rome would once again find itself in a more natural alliance with France. “On defense spending Italy and France are closer, because Germany has the fiscal capacity to spend by itself, while Italy and France need to get as much financial support as they can from the EU,” he said. Despite such differences, Meloni has seized her opening to get closer to Merz. “Meloni has understood that, as there is some tension in the France-Germany relationship, she could infiltrate and get closer to Germany,” said Marc Lazar, an expert on Franco-Italian relations who teaches at the Luiss University in Rome and at Sciences Po in Paris.

U.S. President Donald Trump poked fun at French President Emmanuel Macron’s choice to wear sunglasses due to an eye health problem when he spoke at the World Economic Forum. “I watched him yesterday with those beautiful sunglasses. What the hell happened?” Trump said during his speech at the Davos summit. French officials said Macron has a burst blood vessel in his eye. He has appeared in public in aviator sunglasses in recent days. While addressing troops at a military event this month, he downplayed the “unsightly” condition and said it was “totally benign.” The look has been much-discussed on social media, and Macron himself has joked about it, calling it “the eye of the tiger.” Trump also used his speech to recount an exchange with Macron in which he recounted pressuring the French president to raise prescription drug prices under threat of hefty tariffs. “No, no, Donald, I will do it. I will do it,” Trump said, mimicking Macron.

PARIS — Marine Le Pen desperately wants to run in the next French presidential election, and she’ll throw former allies and longtime foes under the bus if need be. The leading French far-right presidential candidate took the stand at her appeal trial for the first time on Tuesday, disputing allegations that she embezzled funds from the European Parliament by shifting the blame onto the Strasbourg-based institution’s alleged lack of due diligence, and faulting former MEPs who she said hold a grudge against her. Le Pen and her party, the National Rally, are accused of having made the European Parliament pay for party employees by hiring them as parliamentary assistants. The prosecution alleges that the “assistants” seldom or never worked for the MEPs they supposedly reported to. The case arose in 2015 after the Parliament noticed that 20 parliamentary assistants were listed as having political roles in the party’s organizational chart. “The European Parliament never advised us, nor did they blame us for our assistants,” Le Pen told the presiding judge, Michèle Agi, noting that the legislature’s “rules and regulations are 150 pages long.” She suggested the institution was not doing enough to help MEPs navigate their human resources needs. Parliament Director General Didier Klethi later took the stand and pushed back against that claim. “In practice, it is very easy to see whether a contract is linked to a parliamentary mandate or not,” Klethi said. The stakes could not be higher for Le Pen: She is currently unable to run in next year’s presidential election to succeed Emmanuel Macron after a lower court found her guilty of embezzling European Parliament funds and imposed a five-year prohibition on her holding public office. She has previously indicated she would abandon her presidential ambitions if the appeals court confirms the ban. Last week the far-right presidential candidate, who is on trial both as a former MEP and as a party leader, acknowledged some crimes may have been committed, but said if so, it had been unintentional and that she hadn’t been aware at the time that what she was doing was not allowed. She also said she had never hidden anything from the Parliament, which in turn had not advised her regarding any possible wrongdoing. As Agi’s questions became more pointed on Tuesday, Le Pen accused former National Rally MEPs — who told investigators a system had been created to have the party, rather than lawmakers, hire their assistants — of harboring a personal vendetta against her. She said a former accountant “knew nothing” about how an electoral campaign is run, which is why he may have misunderstood why some assistants alternated between working for the party and for the parliamentarians. She also claimed that a former assistant working simultaneously for her office and for another MEP had mostly reported to her deputy — which explained why she hadn’t realized he was doing little to no parliamentary work. Le Pen returns to the stand on Wednesday. The trial is set to last until next month, with a verdict expected before the summer. “I might have a hard time convincing you,” Le Pen conceded as she was grilled.

PARIS — After weeks of failed negotiations, the French government is preparing to force a budget for 2026 through without parliament’s approval. Such a move could end a budget crisis stretching back months — but could equally leave France without a government and, in the worst-case scenario, still without a budget. France entered the new year without a proper spending plan after the government’s fiscal legislation failed to pass parliament in December. Lawmakers only approved an emergency bill to roll over last year’s budget into 2026, averting a U.S.-style government shutdown. MPs returned from the holiday break with little more appetite to strike a deal, and the prospects of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s minority government persuading a majority to back a budget — one that includes politically sensitive measures to rein in France’s chronic deficit — have all but evaporated. In a statement sent to reporters, Lecornu’s office said “continued sabotage” by France’s two largest opposition forces — the hard-left France Unbowed and the far-right National Rally — had made it impossible to pass a budget, even though these two parties don’t hold a majority of seats in parliament, and even though most lawmakers — spanning from the center-left Socialist Party to the conservative Les Républicains — had agreed to enter budget talks over the past few months, albeit failed to reach a compromise. The French constitution gives Lecornu two options. Because parliament failed to pass a budget by the constitutional deadline, the government is allowed to legislate by executive action. The upside: A budget would be adopted, and lawmakers would have no immediate recourse. The downside: No budget has ever been passed this way, and doing so could be perceived as an assault on parliamentary democracy — sharply increasing the likelihood that a no-confidence motion against the government would succeed. The second option would be to invoke the constitution’s controversial article 49.3. The provision allows the government to enact legislation without a vote, while giving opposition parties the right to respond with a no-confidence motion that, if passed, would block the bill and topple the government. That route carries the risk of prolonging the budget crisis, but could be seen as less undemocratic by some opposition parties. Crucially, the center-left Socialists could be persuaded not to support any ensuing no-confidence motion if a budget passed via Article 49.3 incorporates some of their policy priorities. “This is the money time,” a Socialist Party negotiator, granted anonymity to discuss ongoing talks, told POLITICO. Budget Minister Amélie de Montchalin said Thursday the government had not yet decided which path it would take. A senior aide to President Emmanuel Macron said the president remained “neutral” on the issue but was keen to see a budget adopted before the end of the month.

PARIS — Marine Le Pen conceded Tuesday that she may have unwittingly broken the law on the tense first day of an appeals trial that will determine whether she can stand in France’s presidential election next year. The surprising comments from the longtime face of the French far right signal a major shift in strategy as she attempts to get a French court to overturn a five-year ban on running for office after she, her party — the National Rally — and several other codefendants were found guilty of embezzling European Parliament funds. The case has loomed large over Le Pen’s political future and its outcome will likely determine whether she or her protégé Jordan Bardella will represent the far-right party in the 2027 presidential race. Both are polling as front-runners in the contest. Le Pen had for months protested innocence and framed the case against her as politically motivated, but her comments and stoic behavior Tuesday differed markedly from the combative face she wore at the start of the initial trial in 2024. When the judge asked Le Pen why she was appealing, she insisted that any criminal act they may have committed had not been intentional — a departure from her impassioned claims of innocence throughout the initial trial. “I would like to say to the court right now that if a crime has been committed … so be it, but I want the court to know that we never felt like we had committed even the slightest offense,” she said. Le Pen dodged questions from reporters as she arrived and left court. She also declined to talk informally with the press during recesses, as became customary in the first trial. In a rare pre-trial statement, Le Pen told reporters Monday that her “only line of defense for this appeal will be the same as it was during the initial trial: telling the truth.” “The case will be reset and judged by new magistrates. I hope to be better heard and to convince them of my innocence,” she said.