Marine Le Pen sentenced to 45 months ineligibility for misappropriation of public funds
The Paris court of appeal has confirmed Marine Le Pen's guilt for misappropriation of European public funds, whilst reducing her ineligibility sentence to 45 months.
Marine Le Pen sentenced to 45 months ineligibility for misappropriation of public funds
The Paris court of appeal confirmed on Tuesday the guilt of Marine Le Pen in the matter of fictitious parliamentary assistant positions at the European Parliament. The leader of the Rassemblement national has been found guilty of having misappropriated public funds intended for the European Parliament to pay employees of her party between 2004 and 2016.
The judges upheld the conviction but lightened the initial sentence. The ban on holding elected public office has been reduced to forty-five months, of which thirty with a suspended sentence, compared with five years in the first instance. The financial damage was evaluated at 2.8 million euros. In addition to the ineligibility, the court imposed a fine of 100,000 euros and a sentence of three years imprisonment, of which one year in custody with an electronic tag and two years with a suspended sentence.
The Paris district court had already sentenced Le Pen on 31 March of the previous year for having implemented a system of payment for employees of the Front national — since renamed Rassemblement national — by means of money allocated to the assistants of MEPs. The political organisation, at the time in financial difficulties, was also found responsible.
The former presidential candidate, aged fifty-seven, had described the first verdict as a political "witch hunt" and had appealed. Her lawyer, Rodolphe Bosselut, indicated that the defence team was partially satisfied with the new ruling and that a supplementary statement would be published.
According to the AFP news agency, the fifteen months of actual ineligibility could be counted from the initial judgment, which would theoretically leave Le Pen with the possibility of standing in the 2027 presidential election. However, the sentence of one year of home detention under electronic surveillance seriously complicates such a candidacy. The far-right leader had already declared that she would not stand if she had to wear an electronic tag.
Twenty other individuals and the party itself had also been found guilty in March of the previous year. The court of appeal confirmed the guilt of ten of them for misappropriation of funds from the European Parliament, according to the BBC.
President Emmanuel Macron, currently on a visit to Syria, refused to comment on the judicial decision. Left-wing political figures, for their part, called for Le Pen's departure from the National Assembly.
Source: CNN Prima NEWS
Source: Google News CZ — Crime (cs)