The court has resorted to practices fit for “authoritarian regimes,” the politician has claimed
French presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen has denounced the sentence handed down to her by a Paris court as a “political decision” taken on an “order” of her opponents seeking to prevent her from running in the 2027 elections. The politician was sentenced to four years in prison on embezzlement charges and barred from running for public office for five years.
According to the former leader of the National Rally party (RN), the sole purpose of the ruling was to “prevent [her] from participating and being elected in the presidential election,” she told the French broadcaster TF1 on Monday evening.
“The rule of law has been completely violated by the decision that was made,” Le Pen argued, vowing to appeal the court ruling “as soon as possible.”
The court resorted to “practices that were believed to be reserved for authoritarian regimes,” Le Pen claimed, calling it a “disastrous day for our democracy and for our country.” She also said that “millions of French people” were deprived of their preferred candidate at the upcoming elections by a “lower court judge.”
“There are millions of French people this evening, who are outraged… to an unimaginable degree,” by the actions of the court, she asserted.
Le Pen maintained she was “innocent,” adding that her trial was based on “arguments that do not hold water.” She dismissed her case as an “administrative disagreement” within the EU Parliament.
“There is no personal enrichment, there is no corruption, there is none of that,” Le Pen argued.
The former RN leader, who currently heads the party’s faction in the French parliament, also said that her conviction would by no means signal her departure from political life.
The politician was convicted of embezzling over €4 million from the European Parliament from 2004 to 2016. She received a four-year prison sentence, with two years suspended, and a five-year ban on holding public office, effectively disqualifying her from the 2027 presidential election.
Le Pen has been a prominent critic of NATO’s policies in Eastern Europe and has opposed Ukraine’s accession to the military bloc. She has also advocated against the EU’s anti-Russia policies.
The conviction of Le Pen and the disqualification of an independent presidential candidate, Calin Georgescu, in Romania, occur amid an emergence of political movements across the EU opposed to the bloc’s policies.
A number of French and foreign politicians have condemned the court ruling in Le Pen’s case as undemocratic. Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini called the verdict a “declaration of war by Brussels.”
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