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Notes -
If the establishment's goal was to prevent the rise of Right in France(and more importantly Europe) then conviction of Le Pen and removal of her candidature on such shaky ground was clearly a bad move and will definitely come back to bite them one way or the other. On a short term basis yes this removes a long standing thorn on their side by the name of Le Penn and energizes the left leaning base with that sweet sweet nectar of schadenfreude, it does nothing but push away the patient fence sitter mulling which side they should take. Even worse it gives the Right all over Europe an agenda to rally around and a martyr to celebrate. How will the left, positioning itself to be fairer, more democratic and incapable of abusing sacred institutional machinery(positioning not related to actual behaviour) deny comparison to Erdogan's similar disqualification of his own rival using state machinery. Saul Alinsky in his influential book Rules for Radicals laid down the rule "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.", and it certainly seems that the opposition painting the Left violating their own values for political gains will reduce their power. Add in to that the fact the Gaullist positions have recently been vindicated does will also contribute to the rising Right in France.That being said it remains to be seen how the Le Pen and her allies play this situation out.
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