Successful subversion of translation initiation factors 4E and 4G determines the infection success of potyviruses, the largest group of viruses affecting plants. Functional redundancy among these factors allows to engineer resistances through their genetic inactivation, however recent findings indicate that this strategy may be deleterious for the plant health and virus susceptibility. Here, we explored the cause of these adverse effects by studying the role of the Arabidopsis eIF4E1, which inactivation was previously reported not only to confer plant virus resistance, but also to induce increased susceptibility to the potyvirus turnip mosaic virus (TuMV). We report that eIF4E1 is required to maintain the global plant translational activity and to restrict TuMV accumulation during infection, as its absence is associated with a favoured virus multiplication over host translation.