Marine Le Pen, the French far -right leader, was stated guilty of embezzlement by a criminal court in Paris on Monday and immediately banned the race for a public office for five years, triggering a democratic crisis in France.
The verdict has actually prohibited the current front-Runner in the 2027 presidential elections from participation in it, an extraordinary step, but one that the judge chair said was necessary because no one has the right to “immunity in violation of the rule of law”.
Jordan Bardella, Protégé of Mrs. Le Pen and a probable presidential candidate in his absence, said on social media: “Not only the Le Pen navy was unjustly sentenced, French democracy has been executed”. The right leaders throughout Europe, including Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, seemed to agree.
“I’m a navy!” Mr. Orban said.
However, Sacha Houlié, a centrist legislator, asked: “Our society is really so sick that we will offend us to what is no longer and no less than the rule of law?”
The verdict infuriated the lady Le Pen, an anti-immigrant nationalist politician who has already mounted three failed presidential offers. He seemed gloomy and murmuring “incredible”, he quickly left the courtroom before the judges had completed reading his sentence.
He did not turn to the dozen cameras of cameras outside the classroom, but he expected to talk to French television on Monday evening. He had spoken of his “serenity” before the hearing, but there were few evidence of this.
An opinion survey on the presidential elections published on Sunday gave the lady Le Pen from 34 to 37 percent of the votes, more than 10 points in front of her nearest rival. President Emmanuel Macron is limited and cannot run again.
Mrs. Le Pen denied any offense in the event, which involved accusations that her party, the national event, illegally used several million euros in the European Parliament funds for expenses between 2004 and 2016.
The court also sentenced Mrs. Le Pen, 56 years old, to four years in prison, with two of those suspended years. The Court said that the other two could be served in a form of home arrest. It was fined of 100,000 euros, or about $ 108,000.
Mrs. Le Pen’s electoral inadmissibility is actually actually. As a result, only a successful appeal before the 2027 deadline to enter the race would have allowed her to run.
It is not impossible, but it will be difficult. The appeal process is slow in France and even if a new process has occurred before the elections, it is not clear if the case of the accusation would have been canceled.
The judge chanting, Bénédicte de Perthuis, recognized that a politician prevented himself from applying in office could later win on appeal, and said that the court could not be indifferent to “the need to seek social consent”.
But the seriousness of the case and the apparent refusal of those who are accused of recognizing the facts, made the political disqualification necessary, said the judge. The Court must “ensure that elected officials, like any citizen, do not benefit from any favorable treatment,” he observed.
The verdict could inaugurate in a period of renewed political turbulence if the lady Le Pen decided to launch against the fragile French government or if the anger pours into the streets. The government has struggled to approve a balance sheet this year and could still be overturned at any time by the legislators of the low chamber, the national assembly, where Mrs. Le Pen’s party is the largest.
The verdict does not affect its current mandate as a legislator in the lower chamber. But if Mr. Macron calls Snap’s parliamentary elections, as he did last year, he will not be suitable for running again. Given the current impasse in a divided assembly, such a dissolution this year is plausible.
Mrs. Le Pen and her party were accused of appropriation of a sum of almost $ 5 million in funds from the European Parliament for over a decade. But the accusations did very little to hinder the rise of the national event from the fringes of French politics to his heart.
Mrs. Le Pen tried to rename the party, founded in 1972 by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, removing it from her anti-Semitic and racist roots. His platform, however, remained decidedly hard right, asking for extreme hardness on crime and drastic measures against immigration.
The Court established that Mrs. Le Pen had played a “central role” in the regime to subtract funds from the European Parliament and to fill her speakers at a time when they were precariously empty. Mrs. Le Pen was a European legislator from 2004 to 2017.
The party has used legislative assistants that have been paid with funds of the European Parliament to carry out tasks for the unrelated party to EU companies, said the Court.
Mrs. Le Pen, a training lawyer, argued that the legislator’s assistants were not direct employees of the European Parliament.
The Court did not agree. He also rejected the topic of Mrs. Le Pen according to which the case was a hunt for political witches.
“Nobody is on trial to engage in politics,” said Judge De Perthuis.