Next week (tomorrow) the courts and the Constitutional council will decide on Marine Le Pen’s fate as presidential candidate. The court in Paris is to rule on Monday in a case against the Rassemblement National over misusing €2.5bn of EU funds between 2004-2016 to pay party staff and non-accredited parliamentary assistants in Brussels. The charges prosecutors seek for Le Pen, who became party leader in 2011 and was MEP between 2009 and 2017, are a five-year prison term with three years suspended, a €250,000 fine, and a five-year ban from public office with provisional execution. If the verdict is confirmed, this means that even if she appeals the verdict, she won’t be able to run in the 2027 elections, as the appeals process is likely to last longer than that. The provisional execution is thus the lynchpin of this case politically. It could mean the end of Le Pen’s political career if the ban is applied immediately ahead of any appeals process. Provisional execution has been used in civil and criminal ruling…