EVEN mainstream media commentators were shocked when a French court handed down an extraordinarily severe sentence against French populist leader Marie Le Pen for so-called embezzlement of funds – that is, using her EU parliamentary allowances for her party. No personal enrichment was involved.
The judge in a Paris court gave Le Pen a five-year ban from public office and a four-year prison sentence with two years suspended and the rest to be served under home detention and a 100,000 euro ($170,000) fine.
The prosecutors had also asked judges to impose an immediate five-year ban on Le Pen regardless of any appeal, via a so-called “provisional execution” measure.
In France in most cases, sentences are not applied until any appeals process has run its course. However, if judges apply a provisional execution, as they have now done, the sentence begins immediately.
In other words, Le Pen (and colleagues) breached a parliamentary regulation, but was effectively barred from contesting the presidency of France in 2027. Nice job judgies. We’re pretty sure Monsieur Macron will ensure your names are up there for the next big EU jobs.
Le Pen told media after the trial: “The Deep State have banned me because nothing else has worked, but we will not allow them to steal this election. We are going to defend ourselves and use all the means at our disposal to ensure I can run — and we’re going to win.”
Conservative sociologist and author Frank Furedi is not at all surprised by the “job” done on Le Pen. “It’s very simple and straightforward, lawfare has become an important element in the everyday political life of Europe and the western world,” he posted in a video on substack.
US President Donald Trump told media he was well aware of the situation and said “It sounds like here.”
Furedi described lawfare as “a strategic use of the judiciary as an alternative to fighting and winning an election. Lawfare is often used as a way of thwarting the political ambition of certain individual politicians and preventing the decision and will of the people from being realised.”
Furedi says courts throughout Europe are now inhabited by judges who are politicized and committed to a particular ideology.
In Romania last December the Constitutional Court canceled the country’s presidential elections just two days before the final round of voting, claiming it had “newly declassified intelligence” that pointed to “Russian election interference” on behalf of the populist Călin Georgescu, the favorite to win after the first round of voting.
Judge Benedicte de Perthuis ruled that Le Pen, along with eight other people who were EU MPs at the time and 12 parliamentary assistants, were guilty of “embezzling EU funds” even though none were accused of pocketing the money. Their crime was using EU funds to the benefit of their National Rally, which was also fined 2 million euros, half of which was suspended.
The RN is the biggest single party in the French parliament because of its popularity among younger and blue-collar voters. The result forced President Macron to cobble together a shaky coalition of parties to hold the balance of power.
