French justice on Monday found Marine Le Pen guilty of misusing European Union funds to pay employees of her party, the National Rally Party, between 2004 and 2016, IPN reports.
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 reports the French television channel France 24.
The court did not immediately say what the sentence would be and how it would influence her political future.
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.”
“There are 11 million people who voted for the movement I represent. So tomorrow, potentially, millions and millions of French people would see themselves deprived of their candidate in the election,” she told the panel of three judges.
“I absolutely don’t feel I have committed the slightest irregularity, the slightest illegal move.”
Prosecutors asked the court to find Marine Le Pen guilty, asking for a two-year prison sentence and a five-year period of ineligibility.
French prosecutors also asked for a guilty verdict for all the other defendants, including various sentences of up to a year in prison and a fine of €2 million for the National Rally Party.
Marine Le Pen ran for President in France in 2017 and 2022. In both cases, she reached the second round with Emmanuel Macron and was defeated by him.
Photo source: www.express.co.uk
