The crude idea is that it makes US bonds less desirable, meaning they have to increase the interest rate on them, costing the US a lot of money

For just the appeal I don’t think anyone would need to rush anything to have it done before 2027, if it goes to cassation and beyond it probably would need to be rushed somehow for it to happen before 2027

If by recent years, you mean the last 20+ years, sure.

I’m not sure it truly hurts the Front National chances in 2027, however, the expected heir, Jordan Bardella, is not nearly as smart as MLP, so maybe it will make enough of a difference if it ends up a close thing. I would say the political situation in France is pretty volatile, hard to say what it will look like in 2 years.

There is also the possibility (slim, imho, but still real) of MLP either winning her appeal (which should take place sometime in 2026), or at least having the ineligibility sanction removed, which I think would give her a huge boost.

He’s consistently been the president of the wealthy, he could have chosen to make wealthy pensioners take some of the financial burden but decided to put it all on the working population.

He also deleted a wealth tax, consistently slashed benefits for unemployment and social minimums.

On a personal level, he’s had too many dealings with quite a few people implicated in criminal scandals (Sarkozy, notably) to be clean.

All that to say, I can appreciate his talks about Europe, but he’s not been a good president for the french workers, and it’s likely to lead to the far right being in control in a couple years, which could be a disaster for said European project.