Since Wednesday evening, the right has been up in arms against the latest news coming from the Paris criminal court. The requisitions of the prosecution in the trial of the RN parliamentary assistants have in fact sparked a wave of protests in this part of the political spectrum. It must be said that Marine Le Pen sees in the call for her ineligibility an intention to stop her political rise.
The prosecution requested five years in prison, including two years in prison, a fine of 300,000 euros and five years of ineligibility against the three-time presidential candidate, judging her to be at the “center” of an “organized system” aiming to make the European Parliament the “cash cow” of the RN. If the court follows the prosecution, the penalty of ineligibility, accompanied by provisional execution, would be applicable from the conviction, including in the event of appeal.
For Bardella, “the prosecution is not in justice”
“The only thing that interested the prosecution was Marine Le Pen to be able to request her exclusion from political life […] and then the National Rally to be able to ruin the party,” said the leader of the RN after the requisitions. Two and a half years before the 2027 presidential election, the prosecution is showing “a desire to deprive the French of the ability to vote for who they wish,” she asserted.
“The prosecution is not in justice: it is in relentlessness and revenge against Marine Le Pen,” added the president of the RN, Jordan Bardella, on X. “Its scandalous requisitions aim to deprive millions of French people from their vote in 2027. This is an attack on democracy.”
Just like the president of the party, many RN elected officials have published photos of themselves with Marine Le Pen on X under the hashtag #JeSoutiensMarine.
Same indignation among the other components of the nationalist right and the extreme right. “The course of French democracy must not be confiscated from voters again,” said Éric Ciotti, evoking the precedent of François Fillon during the 2017 presidential election. “The democratic destiny of our nation must be played out at the ballot box and not in politicized courtrooms,” he insisted. A position shared by Sarah Knafo, MEP from the Zemmourist Reconquête party, or even by the sovereignist Nicolas Dupont-Aignan.
Darmanin very critical
A rare voice outside the field of the extreme right to speak out, Gérald Darmanin also judged that “fighting Madame Le Pen is done at the polls, not elsewhere”. On
A position on the other hand openly criticized by the boss of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure who sees it as a “big embarrassing wink from someone who pretends to pity the one whose electorate he dreams of recovering” and denounces a “big breach to the principle of separation of powers.
