France

Marine Le Pen, the decorative figure of the political movement of extremely ascending right In France, he was beaten with a prison sentence without custody and prohibited to the elections for five years on Monday, since a court declared her guilty of embezzlement of the European Union to pay the staff members of their national demonstration party. When delivering the sentence, the judge said that the prohibition of the public office would immediately take effect.

“The Court took into consideration, in addition to the risk of recidivism, the great disturbance of public order if a person already convicted … He was a candidate in the presidential elections,” said the French news agency News, Judge Benedict of Perthuis.

From Perthuis, he also sentenced Le Pen to four years in prison, but said that part of his sentence would be served as a house arrest, and she wore an electronic label, not in a prison. The judge suspended two of the four years of the prison sentence. It also fined more than $ 100,000.

Le Pen, speaking with the French television channel TF1 in his first reaction to the verdict, said he would appeal and called a “political” movement aimed at preventing it from running in the 2027 presidential elections.

She said that the court should not have made it inevable to run for a position until all their chances of appeal have been exhausted.

“If that is not a political decision, I don’t know what it is,” he said.

Le Pen would remain inelegable to be a candidate until the appeal is decided, but the house arrest and the fine would be suspended during the appeal process.

Le Pen said he would ask that judicial procedures take place before the 2027 campaign. Only an appeal ruling that annuls the prohibition of a public office could restore their hopes for running. But, there is no guarantee that an appeal court would rule more favorably, and appeals in France may take several years to conclude.

Rodolphe Bosselut, lawyer of Le Pen, said he was “horrified” by the decision of the court, describing him as “extremely scandalous.” He also promised to launch an appeal against the guilt verdict.

Recent surveys have shown that Le Pen would probably have won at least a first round in the next national elections in France, although it is much less clear how it would have gone in a second round against a more moderate candidate.

Political figures of extreme right throughout Europe, including the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders and Italy Matteo Salvini – The verdict condemned on Monday.

Meanwhile, in Russia, the spokesman for Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, said that Le Pen’s judgment was evidence that European nations “advance in the trampling path on democratic norms.”

“Of course, we do not want to interfere with the internal affairs of France, we have never done it, and this is the internal issue of France,” said Peskov, “but in general, our observations of European capitals show that they are not reluctant to go beyond democracy during the political process.”

Le Pen, 56, obtained 41% of ballots in the latest French presidential elections in 2022, decisively defeated by the current President Emmanuel Macron, and has not hidden his desire to run again for the highest position of the Nation.

He sat in the front row of the Court of Paris, Le Pen whispered “incredible” when the judge detailed his reasoning for the guilt verdict. He left the Court before the sentences were announced.

Le Pen, along with eight current or previous members of the party, had faced up to 10 years in prison for charges of embezzlement. A dozen others who served as parliamentary assistants for the National Rally Party, previously the National Front, also received guilt verdicts for their role in the scheme.

The judge said that Le Pen and his colleagues were not personally enriched, but called the embezzlement of “a democratic bypass” that cheated the Parliament and the French voters. He said that Pen was in the center of “a system” used to divert EU money aimed at paying EU parliamentary assistants, to pay the party staff between 2004 and 2016.

Le Pen has denied any irregularity, claiming that prosecutors were “only interested” in causing it from the presidential elections. She told the newspaper La Tribune Dimanche on Sunday, before the verdict was delivered, that the judges had “the right of life or death about our movement.”

It is possible that Le Pen has no choice now to give up the presidential ambitions of his party to his current president, Jordan Bardella, a 29 -year -old girl who assumed the position of national rally leader in 2021.

Editor’s note: an earlier version of this story characterized by the appeal process. Le Pen says he will appeal.

The Association press contributed to this report.

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