The trial for alleged irregular financing of the party Marine Le Penleader of the French extreme right, came to an end this Wednesday in Paris. The ultraconservative’s defense focused on avoiding a possible disqualification that could prevent her from running in the 2027 presidential elections. The sentence has been set for next March 31.
During almost two months of hearings, the leader regularly attended the Correctional Court. At the end of the trial, Le Pen stated that her political strategy will continue regardless of the judicial outcome, ensuring that this process will have “zero political consequences“and ruling out that their decisions are influenced by the possibility of a conviction.
Among her most notable political threats, the leader of the extreme right contemplates presenting a motion of censure to the Government of Michel Barnier if the budgets are not modified, which could destabilize the current Executive.
The Prosecutor’s Office requests five years in prison, five years of disqualification and a fine of 300,000 euros for Marine Le Pen
In the judicial field, your lawyer, Rodolphe Bosseluthas harshly criticized the request of the Prosecutor’s Office, which asks for a sentence of five years in prisonof which two would be final, in addition to a fine of 300,000 euros and a five-year disqualification. According to Bosselut, the demand that the disqualification be immediate is “unfair” and would cause irreparable political damage.
The defense argued that the alleged events occurred before the law came into force in 2016. Sapin 2which sets automatic disabling for politicians convicted of embezzlement in the exercise of public office.
Specifically, Le Pen faces accusations of embezzlement of public funds due to the alleged misuse of four parliamentary assistants, who would have worked for the National Front (FN) – the formation of the far-right, now called the National Group – instead of fulfilling its functions in the European Parliament between 2004 and 2016.
According to Bosselut, this practice was not exclusive to the FN, but was common among European opposition parties and lacked fraudulent intent. Likewise, he stressed that a conviction would affect those who wanted to support Le Pen in 2027, who received 13 million votes in the 2022 presidential elections.
The lawyer also considered that his client should not be treated differently because of her last name. And the current leader of the ultraconservative formation is the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Penfounder of the National Front. He has been condemned on multiple occasions for minimizing the Nazi holocaust, which led to the suspension of his militancy in May 2015.
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