A French court found Marine Le Pen guilty Monday in an embezzlement case and followed up the verdict with a sentence barring her immediately from running for office for five years. Le Pen abruptly left the Paris courtroom before hearing how long she will be banned from running for public office.

Le Pen and 24 other officials from her National Rally were accused of having used money intended for European Union parliamentary aides to pay staff who worked for the party between 2004 and 2016, in violation of the 27-nation bloc’s regulations. Le Pen and her co-defendants deny wrongdoing.

The biggest concern for Le Pen was that the court may declare her ineligible to run for office preventing her from running for president in 2027 -- a scenario she had described as a “political death.”

The Constitutional Council ruled Friday, in a separate case, that imposing the punishment immediately was constitutional.

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[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 days ago (16 children)

Anybody who thinks that neoliberals won't be doing the same thing with socialists going forward is in for a surprise. It's becoming clear that the EU will just use lawfare to keep neoliberal center in power going forward.

[–] edel@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

100% agree! The EU has opened a pandora's box by going after elements like Le Pen and Georgescu. That is not the way! Address people's concerns, penalize huge corporations negative externalities and wrongdoings as it should... banning voices just exacerbates their grievances. I don't know about Le Pen, just dislike her incendiary immigrant rhetoric wanted to reduce drastically immigration is a valid stance in my mind, although I disagree with, but being anti-[fill_religion_or_color__here] is not). What I know is that the claims posed by Romania does not hold any water... There is no evidence presented to this day of Russian interference... just claims; with that any current government can also 'claim' interference and stop a candidate. Bad, bad times in the EU.

[–] loaExMachina@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So like... She should not get any punishment for embezzling European Union funds ?

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 day ago (2 children)

So like... when you apply law selectively that's a problem. For example, Christine Lagarde was found guilty of involvement in a corrupt 400m euro arbitration, received no sentence, and was awarded with the ECB governor job. https://news.sky.com/story/court-finds-imf-chief-christine-lagarde-guilty-of-criminal-negligence-10702431

Then there's von der Leyen who simply refused to disclose text messages she exchanged with the chief executive of Pfizer https://www.ft.com/content/72f0cb12-3753-42a9-aba4-7b3fb596e1cd

There are plenty of such cases and these people never face any punishment, but all of a sudden in this case there's a sentence handed down. Anybody with even a minimally functioning brain can see that this is politically motivated lawfare. If the law is not applied equally then it's no longer just.

[–] inso@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is because LePen is being condamned based on a law from 2016. (That she voted BTW)

The cases you mention here are older and cannot be judged through this law in France.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

If you think Le Pen is a unique case in France, I have a bridge to sell you.

[–] loaExMachina@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Christine Lagarde was found guilty of negligence, not embezzling. Patrick Balkany or François Fillon are better comparisons, and they both also got condemned to a period of ineligibility (10 years, twice of Lepen's mere 5 years). They're also both of the more "traditional" right wing party, not usually considered extremists.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

What Lagarde was doing is pretty clearly embezzlement, and I would be willing to bet that majority of the EU politicians use their funds for their campaign staff. If you think this is an isolated incident, then you must've been born yesterday. That's the beauty of a corrupt regime, there's dirt to be found on any politician. All you have to do is decide where the spotlight shines and eliminate the competition. This is no different from what's happening in Turkey now.

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