This time, Marine Le Pen was really scared. The three-time candidate for the presidential election discovered, Wednesday November 7 – at the same time as her lawyers – that, if she was convicted at the trial of the parliamentary assistants of the National Front (FN) in the European Parliament, she would necessarily become ineligible for five years, unless there is a specially reasoned decision by the court. And she is well aware that a conviction, while the proceedings will be closed on Tuesday November 12, has become very probable throughout the hearing. The judgment will take place at the beginning of 2025.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers Marine Le Pen at the trial of FN parliamentary assistants: “You are looking for the little beast”
Read later
“This automaticity, which I consider questionable, could have extremely serious consequences, worried the National Rally (RN, ex-FN) MP from Pas-de-Calais. Not just for me, but for 13 million voters. » The candidate had in fact obtained, in the 2022 presidential election, 41.45% of the votes cast, or 13,288,686 votes. Shock among his lawyers, who were only preparing to fight against an extension of prevention, that is to say of the period when the embezzlement of public funds took place. Jean-Marie Le Pen, as then president of the National Front, is legally responsible for these embezzlements from 2004; Marine Le Pen, who then took over as head of the party, was from 2011 to 2016 – the case of her father, 96 years old, will theoretically have to be examined later, but, given his state of health, will not be probably never.
The problem therefore primarily concerns Marine Le Pen. However, the prosecutors, Nicolas Barret and Louise Neyton, observed, in the first days of the hearing, that the parliamentary assistant contracts were in reality only closed when the European Parliament had regularized the funds, which took a little time. Louise Neyton produced a table on Wednesday which summarizes the official contract closing date. “The period is sometimes extended by three years, without any positive act by the defendants”was indignant Rodolphe Bosselut, Marine Le Pen's lawyer, who had not thought about it and who believes with all his colleagues that the unforeseen extension of prevention vigorously violates the rights of the defense.
Wind of revolt
Above all, it has the consequence, as noted The Chained Duck of October 23, to place the defendants under the law of September 15, 2017 “for confidence in political life”, which imposes mandatory ineligibility sentences in the event of conviction. Marine Le Pen immediately declared that she would not answer questions beyond 2016, the deadline for which she was referred to court.
You have 48.26% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
