A French court recognized Marine Le Pen guilty on Monday in a case of embezzlement of funds, with a sentence which prevented him from the public service for five years with “immediate effect”.
The penalty prevents him from presenting himself to the presidency of the nationalist, anti-immigration national Rally Party in 2027.
Prosecutors also sentenced it to two years in home detention with an electronic bracelet, with two more years. In addition, Le Pen was sentenced to a fine of 100,000 euros ($ 154,000 CDN).
Neither the prison sentence nor the fine would be applied until his calls are exhausted, but his ban on five years to appear at an office comes into play immediately, via a so-called “provisional execution” measure requested by prosecutors, and will only be lifted if an appeal is maintained before the elections. She retains her parliamentary seat.
Le Pen, 56, was a finalist to President Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 presidential elections and 2022, and the electoral support of his party has increased in recent years. The National Rally holds the most seats in the National Assembly after its performance in last year’s legislative elections, which forced Macron to build a governing coalition beyond its own party.
Le Pen and party officials formerly known as the National Front were accused of having used money for parliamentary aid of the European Union to pay the staff who worked for the party between 2004 and 2016, in violation of the block regulations of 27 countries.
Judge Benedicte de Perthuis, reading the verdict of the panel of three judges, said that the Pen had been “at the heart” of the program. The judge said that if Le Pen and other co-accused have not been enriched personally, the embezzlement was “a democratic bypass” which deceived Parliament and the voters.
Le Pen shook his head several times when the guilt was read. “Incredible,” she whispered at some point.
The judge also made the verdicts of guilt to eight other current or former members of his party who, like her, were previously the legislators of the European Parliament.
Le Pen and other accused can appeal, which would lead to another trial.
Right -wing politicians slam the verdict
During the trial of nine weeks which took place at the end of 2024, Le Pen argued that ineligibility “would have the effect of depriving me of being a presidential candidate” and of depriving his supporters.
“There are 11 million people who voted for the movement I represent. So … potentially, millions and millions of French people would be deprived of their candidate in the elections,” she said in the panel of three judges.
This kind of feeling was immediately taken up by his supporters in France and beyond.
The eminent right -wing Italian politician Matteo Salvini and the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban condemned the verdict.
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The Kremlin also condemned the verdict in a press release.
Le Pen left the Highrise Paris courthouse without stopping to talk to journalists and rose in a car that hunted it.
The court also made guilt verdicts to 12 other people who were parliamentary assistants for Le Pen.
If Le Pen cannot appear in 2027, his apparent natural successor would be Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s 29 -year -old protégé who succeeded him as the party president in 2021.
“Today, it is not only Marine Le Pen who was unjustly condemned: it was French democracy that was killed,” Bardella said in a statement.
Le Pen had argued that it was acceptable to adapt the work of the aid paid by the European Parliament to the needs of the legislators, including political work related to the party.
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Hearings have shown that EU money was used to pay Le Pen’s bodyguard – which was once his father’s bodyguard – as well as his personal assistant.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, his father, co-founded the National Front in the 1970s and led him from the marginal party to the competition of the French elections during a runoff of 2002.
