In 1759, British Adm. John Byng was executed by firing squad for “failing to do his utmost” to relieve Minorca, a Mediterranean island besieged by the French navy. This minor episode in the Seven Years’ War, known in these parts as the French and Indian War, inspired a scene in Voltaire’s satirical novel Candide. When the naif Candide witnesses a naval officer’s execution in Britain, he is told, “In this country, it’s good to kill an admiral from time to time, pour encourager les autres.”

The joke is that law and sentencing are supposed to discourage others. In this sense, the conviction on March 31 of the French populist Marine Le Pen for embezzlement looks conventional. As the prosecution showed, between 2004 and 2016, Le Pen’s party, the National Front, diverted European Parliament subsidies for its representatives’ expenses to the party’s domestic staff. Le Pen insisted she had not broken the law, but the judge concluded that she was “at the heart” of this illegal scheme. Le Pen is now banned from running for election for five years. She also received a fine and a four-year prison sentence: two years wearing an electronic tag rather than in jail and the other two suspended.