French far-right leader, Marine Le Pen has been banned from running for political office for five years, after being found guilty of embezzlement of European parliament funds.
Judges handed Le Pen, 56, a five-year ban on running for public office with the added provision that it will take immediate effect and will apply despite the fact that she is appealing against the verdict.
The decision, which bars her from running for President in 2027, was a political blow to Le Pen, the leader of the far-right anti-immigration National Rally (RN) party, who had hoped to mount a fourth campaign to become President.
Le Pen has run for French President three times, twice making the final run-off against Emmanuel Macron.
She had believed she had her greatest chance of winning the Élysée in 2027 on a platform against immigration.
Le Pen, who left the court before the hearing had finished, was also sentenced to four years in prison with two years suspended and the other two to be served outside jail with an electronic bracelet.
She was handed a €100,000 (£84,000) fine. Neither the prison penalty nor fine will be applied until her appeals are exhausted, a process that could take years.
Le Pen and 24 party members, including nine former members of the European parliament and their 12 parliamentary assistants, were found guilty of a vast scheme over many years to embezzle European parliament funds, by using money earmarked for European parliament assistants to instead pay party workers in France.
The so-called fake jobs system covered parliamentary assistant contracts between 2004 and 2016, and was unprecedented in scale and duration, causing losses of €4.5m to European taxpayer funds.
Assistants paid by the European parliament must work directly on Strasbourg parliamentary matters, which the judges found had not been the case.
Addressing the trial last month, Le Pen said, “I have absolutely no sense of having committed the slightest irregularity, or the slightest illegal act.”
RN Slams Court Sentence
The RN, the single largest party in the French parliament, reacted with fury, calling the sentence a travesty and an attack on democracy, backed by some politicians on the traditional right.
The party’s President, Jordan Bardella, 29, said, “Today it is not only Marine Le Pen who was unjustly condemned: it was French democracy that was killed.”
Louis Aliot, the RN Vice President and Mayor of Perpignan, who was also found guilty, said that Le Pen’s sentence was an “intrusion” into the electoral process which would “leave an indelible stain on the history of our democracy.”
Le Pen’s lawyer, Rodolphe Bosselut called the sentence “a blow to democracy.”
Laurent Wauquiez, of the traditional right Les Républicains party, opined that it was a “very heavy and exceptional sentence” that was “not very healthy in democracy.”
François-Xavier Bellamy, a member of the European parliament for Les Républicains, said, “Whatever you think of the RN and this case, today is a dark day for French democracy.”
International politicians on the populist right criticised the sentence, including the Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders. In an apparent display of solidarity, the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, declared, “I am Marine.”
Le Pen will be able to retain her current post as member of the French parliament for Pas-de-Calais, but will not be able to stand again in a future parliamentary election for the duration of her ban on running for office.
The party will now have to decide who would take her place in the next French presidential race.
Bardella, a member of the European parliament, is popular among voters but is seen as having little experience.
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