Marines are banned in French presidential election after misappropriation of public funds
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was found guilty of embezzlement by a criminal court in Paris on Monday and immediately banned from running for office for five years, triggering a democratic crisis in France.
The judgment effectively bans the current leader from the 2027 presidential election, which is an extraordinary step, but the Chairman's Justice said it is necessary because no one has the right to “violate immunity against the rule of law.”
Jordan Bardella, a protégé of Ms. Le Pen, may also say on social media: “Not only was there unfairly convicted the Marines, but also enforced French democracy.” Europe’s tough leaders, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, seem to agree.
“Je Suis Marine!” Mr. Oban announced.
But, centrist Sacha Houlié asked: “Our society is so disgusting that we will no longer be an offensive of the rule of law?”
The verdict angered Ms. Le Pen, an anti-immigrant, nationalist politician who has reached three failed presidential bids. She looked grim and murmured “incredible” and walked out of the court briskly before the judge finished reading the verdict.
She did not speak to dozens of film crews outside the court, but she is expected to speak on French television on Monday night. She talked about her “serene” before the hearing, but there was little evidence.
A poll of the presidential election released on Sunday put Ms. Le Pen’s turnout at 34% to 37%, 10 points ahead of her recent rival. President Emmanuel Macron is limited by term and cannot run again.
Ms Le Pen denied any wrongdoing in the case, which accused her party, a national rally, of misusing millions of euros of European Parliament funds between 2004 and 2016. Ms. Le Pen is not considered a charge of enriching herself, but overseeing a complex plan that could provide European legal lawyers with a complex plan to pay a complex party employee to pay European legal lawyers.
The court also sentenced Ms. Le Pen, 56, to four years in prison, two of which were suspended. The court said the other two could serve in the form of arrests in the House of Representatives. She was fined 100,000 euros, about $108,000.
Ms. Le Pen's election is immediately valid. As a result, if she determines that the appeal is a more plenipotent ruling, she can only run in 2027 – which is difficult, but not impossible. France's appeal process is slow, and even if a new trial was conducted before the election, it is unclear whether the prosecutor's case will be overturned.
Chairman Judge Bénédict de Perthuis acknowledged that a politician who prevented the election from winning the appeal might later win, saying the court was irrelevant to the need to seek social consensus.
But the seriousness of the case and the obvious refusal of the person accused of acknowledging the facts made political disqualification necessary, the judge said. She noted that the court must “make sure that elected officials, like any citizen, will not benefit from any favorable treatment.”
If Ms. Le Pen decides to slam France’s fragile government, or if anger spreads to the streets, the verdict could trigger a new period of political turmoil. The government is working hard to pass the budget this year and can still be overturned in the House of Commons at any time, with lawmakers in the National Assembly, and Ms. Le Pen’s party is the biggest.
The judgment will not affect her current mission as a member of the House of Commons. But if Mr Macron calls the Snap parliamentary election, like he did last year, she will not be eligible to run again. Given the current deadlock in split assembly, this year's disbandment is justified.
Ms. Le Pen and her party have been accused of misappropriating nearly $5 million in European Parliament funds for more than a decade. But these accusations did not prevent national assembly from rising from the brink of French politics to its heart.
Ms. Le Pen worked hard to rebrand, founded in 1972 by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, to keep it away from its anti-Semitism and racism roots. However, its platform remains firm and resolute, demanding great resilience to crime and anti-immigration measures.
The court ruled that Ms. Le Pen played a “core role” in the plan to fund funds from the European Parliament and fill her stocks when it was unstable. Ms. Le Pen was a European Parliamentary from 2004 to 2017.
The court ruled that the party used aides of parliamentarians who were paid for European Parliament funds to perform tasks for parties not related to EU business.
It also rejects Ms. Le Pen’s argument that the case is a hunting of a political witch.
Judge De Perthuis said: “No one is being tried for being involved in politics.”
