(Paris) “It is my political death that is being demanded”, considered Friday the leader of the French extreme right, Marine Le Pen, after the sentence of ineligibility with immediate execution which was requested against her by the prosecutors during the trial of assistants to MEPs from his party.
Posted at 3:31 p.m.
The prosecution also requested, against the three-time unsuccessful presidential candidate, five years of imprisonment, including two years, and a fine of 300,000 euros (445,000 Canadian dollars).
The defense pleadings are expected on Monday, before a judgment from the criminal court which must be rendered in early 2025.
“My political survival, obviously, will depend on the implementation of this political death sentence, with provisional execution or not,” said Mr.me Le Pen during an interview Friday evening on French television TF1.
“And this is, I believe, the goal from the start of this operation which was launched by a socialist, Mr. [Martin] Schulz, [à l’époque] President of the European Parliament, in agreement with the socialist Mme [Christiane] Taubira, Minister of Justice at the time” in France, she continued.
By evoking an “outrageous” indictment and “out of all proportion to the slightest indictment of the same type”, the French MP expressed a “feeling of revolt”, according to her also felt by “millions of French people”, “and even beyond my own political camp, since the indignation aroused by this indictment has, in some way, crossed the entire political class.”
Many French political figures, including former Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin from President Macron’s party, have expressed their reservations about the idea of a sentence of ineligibility with immediate effect.
“In reality, I realized that it was not the litigant who was being judged, that it was the political target who was being judged,” protested the woman who appeared alongside 24 other defendants, suspected of having hired assistants to MEPs whose missions were in fact for the sole benefit of the far-right party.
Asked about a desire to “put pressure on justice”, while her party the National Rally (RN) notably launched an online petition to protest against these requisitions of the prosecution, Marine Le Pen replied “never in my life” .
“But we had to give the opportunity to those who were outraged […] to express this indignation, but in the most peaceful way possible, that is to say through a petition,” she further justified herself.
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