French extremely right -wing leader Marin Le Pen has been forbidden to hold the post for five years with an immediate effect and sentenced to prison after being convicted of embezzling EU funds.
The court ruling on Monday, which remit France The political landscape is likely to block Le Pen from running in the 2027 presidential election, which she was one of her favorites.
Le Penwho went out of the courtroom in Paris before her sentence was published and the word “amazing” under her breath muttered, said she would appeal. Her party, Rassemblement National, called for mass protests in response to the verdict by three judges.
In an interview with TF1 television on Monday night, Le Pen acknowledged that the court’s verdict means it was “eliminated” by the presidential vote in 2027, but promised to fight and try to overturn the verdict in her appeal.
She criticized the judges’ verdict as biased and violated the freedom of voter election. “I will not afford to eliminate myself.
With populist right Increasing most of Europe’s centrist forces and President Emmanuel Macron weakened by the loss of their parliamentary majority in last year’s legislative election, the three -time presidential candidate hoped to finally secure power in the 2027 poll.
Although the five -year election ban will begin immediately, Le Pen’s four -year prison sentence will only begin after further legal recourse.
Two years of the sentence can be imposed under surveillance, dressed in an ankle bracelet, while the two additional years have been suspended. Le Pen was also fined 100,000 euros.
“It is necessary to ensure that the elected officials do not benefit from preferential treatment,” said chief judge Benedict de Pertius in the justification for imposing immediate ban.
Le Pen’s ability to work in the 2027 elections will depend on the duration of the appeal process and its final outcome.
She told TF1 that he did not intend to withdraw from politics and would remain a member of the National Assembly. “By no means, not at all,” said Le Pen. “In democracy, voters decide. I am here tonight to tell them: Don’t worry, I’m not demoralized.”
However, many analysts believe that Le Pen will not be able to challenge the vote in 2027.
“This marks the main, big turnaround in French political life,” said Bruno Cateter, a political scientist at the University of Science in Paris, claiming that Le Pen’s 29-year-old protégé, Jordandan Bardela, will now have to run in her place.
Kauris added that Le Pen was one of the two leaders for president, along with former Centrist Prime Minister Aduar, Philip, who entered her in a Sunday opinion poll.
“Today, it’s not just Marin Le Pen who is unjustly condemned: it’s a French democracy that is being executed,” Bardela reported, later calling for a peaceful mass mobilization “to show that the will of the people is stronger” by the court.
The verdict was attacked by the Donald Trump administration. “The exclusion of people from the political process is particularly worrying given the aggressive and corrupt law against President Trump here in the United States,” said Tami Bruce, a spokesman for the US State Department.
Bruce highlighted the controversial speech given by US Vice President JD Vance at a Munich Security Conference in February that Europe was withdrawing from its “core values”, partly demanding that the far -right parties wereolated.
Elon Musk, a key adviser to Trump, also made the verdict. “When the radical cannot win through a democratic vote, they abuse the legal system to close their opponents,” he said.
Mateo Salvini, the far-right deputy prime minister of Italy and Le Pen’s ally, compared the verdict with the decision of the Romanian authorities to exclude former cylinder Ororghescu’s leader from the country’s presidential race.
“This is a declaration of war from Brussels,” he said. “We will not be intimidated, we will not stop.”
Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said “More European capitals go the way to trampling on democratic norms.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced: “I’m a navy!“
But Priska Teven, a centrist lawmaker from Macron’s party, said Le Pen should not be above the law.
“We are in a democracy based on the rule of law,” she added. “There is a split between the law and politics.”
The court found that the system of false contracts and jobs helped the national siphon of the Rusemblement, about 4.4m euros to EU funds using parliamentary assistants in Brussels to work for the party in France.
A total of 24 elected pH officials – including nine former members of the European Parliament – were tried for similar offenses along with Le Pen, which was MEP between 2004 and 2016.
“These were false agreements,” the chief judge said as he read the verdict.
She added that although there was no “personal enrichment” for the ex-memes involved, they benefit from “certain financial comfort” as well as financial aid to the party.
All nine of the former memes were also found guilty, while judgments of other employees and party officials vary depending on their level of involvement.
When making its decisions, the court also took into account the risk of repeated violations and “great disturbance of public order” if someone who was sentenced to condemnation was allowed to run in the presidential election.
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