France's Le Pen convicted in fake jobs trial / Photo: Thomas SAMSON - AFP
NYSE - LSE
France's Le Pen convicted in fake jobs trial
A French court on Monday convicted far-right leader Marine Le Pen on charges of embezzlement of public funds over a fake jobs scam at the European Parliament, leaving her chances of standing in the 2027 presidential election hanging in the balance.
The judge has yet to issue a sentence, after prosecutors last year asked the court to impose against Le Pen a five-year jail term but also a five-year ban on holding public office to be imposed with immediate effect.
Including Le Pen, nine figures from her National Rally (RN) party were convicted for a scheme where they took advantage of European Parliament expenses to employ assistants who were actually working for the party.
Twelve assistants were also convicted of concealing a crime, with the court estimating the scheme was worth 2.9 million euros.
Three-time presidential candidate Le Pen, who scents her best-ever chance of winning the French presidency in 2027, has vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
If the court follows the recommendation by prosecutors that a ban on holding public office should immediately come into effect even if she appeals, it would essentially disqualify her from the presidential polls in two years' time.
Le Pen was present in court as presiding judge Benedicte de Perthuis began reading out the verdict, a process that should take less than two hours.
"It's going to take a while," said the judge. "The court has no intention of keeping up suspense but it will, as is customary, provide a number of explanations for the decision taken."
Le Pen said in a piece for the La Tribune Dimanche newspaper published on Sunday that the verdict gives the "judges the right of life or death over our movement".
- Young pretender -
With her RN emerging as the single largest party in parliament after the 2024 legislative elections, Le Pen believes she has the momentum to finally take the Elysee in 2027 on the back of public concern over immigration and the cost of living.
Polls currently predict that she would easily top the first round of voting and make the second round two-candidate run-off.
If successful in 2027, she could join a growing number of hard- and far-right leaders around the world ranging from Giorgia Meloni in Italy to Hungary's Viktor Orban.
Should she be condemned, waiting in the wings is her protege and RN party leader Jordan Bardella, just 29, who is not under investigation in the case.
In a documentary broadcast by BFMTV late on Sunday, Le Pen for the first time explicitly gave her blessing to Bardella becoming president. "Of course he has the capacity to become president of the republic," she said.
But there are doubts even within the party over the so-called "Plan B" and whether he has the experience for a presidential campaign.
Le Pen took over as head of the then-National Front (FN) in 2011 but rapidly took steps towards making the party an electoral force and shaking off the controversial legacy of its co-founder and her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died earlier this year and who was often accused of making racist and anti-Semitic comments.
She renamed it the National Rally and embarked on a policy known as "dediabolisation" (de-demonisation) with the stated aim of making it acceptable to a wider range of voters.
- 'Political death' -
A shocked Le Pen said after the prosecutors' demands were announced that they were seeking "my political death" and accused them of attempting to deny the French a free choice at the next elections.
But prosecutors have insisted there has been no "harassment" of the RN.
They accuse the party of easing pressure on its own finances by using all of the 21,000-euro monthly allowance to which MEPs were entitled to pay "fictitious" parliamentary assistants, who actually worked for the party in France.
And prosecutors argue that its "organised" nature was "strengthened" when Marine Le Pen took over as party leader in 2011.
Given her current popularity, even some opponents have expressed discomfort over the prospect of Le Pen not making it to the starting line of an election.
"There are a very significant number of our fellow French citizens who identify with Marine Le Pen's words and her struggle, and personally I would be very upset, to put it mildly, if she were unable to run to represent them," France's former EU commissioner Thierry Breton told French television at the weekend.
E.Carlier--JdB
