Marine Le Pen is presumed innocent. His lawyers, those of the National Rally (RN) and the twenty-four other elected officials, executives or small hands tried alongside him for embezzlement of public funds in the case of European parliamentary assistants, still have six days of pleading. The judgment will not be rendered until 2025. But it was with a dark look, a closed face and a vindictive tone that the three-time presidential candidate presented herself on the 8 p.m. television news on TF1, Friday, November 15.
Two days earlier, the prosecution's requisitions, commensurate with the violations of integrity of which she is suspected, reminded the member of Parliament for Pas-de-Calais of the threat which weighed on her political future: five years of ineligibility were demanded against him by the public prosecutor, in addition to five years of imprisonment (two of which are fixed, convertible with an electronic bracelet) and a fine of 30,000 euros.
A perspective which has since justified an outcry from his camp against justice, described as ” policy “accused of wanting to hinder the rise of Marine Le Pen. “I come to tell the French today that the idea that (…) depriving them of their choice is a very violent attack on democracy”warned Jean-Marie Le Pen's daughter, jaw clenched.
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Manage the risk that she won't be able to show up
The recognition of the RN therefore had a limit: the personal interests of its leader. After years spent establishing herself as a bulwark of institutions, the elected official has definitively returned to the populist and anti-establishment rhetoric that her party had muted, deemed incompatible with accession to power. The priority at the moment is not to build the stature of a candidate for the next presidential election, but to manage the risk that she will not be able to run. “The objective [des magistrats] is to attack a political opponentrepeated Marine Le Pen. And beyond me, it is the French people who, in reality, are prevented from hoping. »
The president of the RN group in the National Assembly denies “put pressure” on her judges, but she warns that a sentence severe enough to thwart her career plans would cause a “democratic dysfunction”. Especially if, as requested by the prosecution, she was ineligible with provisional execution, immediately depriving her of the right to stand in an election. “It is my political death that is being demanded”lamented the one who presents herself in “natural candidate” of his camp in the 2027 presidential election.
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