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

You aren't wrong, but can you really say they wouldn't do this to socialists if they didn't do it to Le Pen first? The concept of "precedent" seems very nebulous and liberal to me. In many countries the first targets are socialists.

Seems to me like they can go after anyone they want and they always could. Going after Le Pen doesn't change this.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 0 points 3 days ago

I mean the reason they went after Le Pen was because neolibs see her as the biggest threat. If it was somebody on the left like Mélenchon they would've gone after him instead. I agree that they don't really need a precedent, but I'm sure they will leverage it next time now that it's there.