cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/4484610
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.
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.