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Banned from running for public office with immediate effect. Length of ban to be announced.
Also, I must say, if you enjoy following politics and arenât interested in backing any horses (so to speak), itâs an incredible time to be doing so. Itâs absolutely â â â â â â â bonkers at the moment.
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Didnt these guys not want to be part of EU? If so, oh the irony of it all.
Ban is five years.
Obviously will go to appeal, but given French Presidential election is in 2027, looks extremely unlikely Le Pen will be able to run.
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4 years jail time
100,000 Euro fine
& the ineligibility
She can continue to sit in the French Parliament, but is provisionally barred ; (the ruling has the status of âprovisional executionâ ) from standing as a candidate in any future French election.
Presumably if she wins an appeal on the embezzlement conviction, itâs as you were.
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Sounds very French.
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Putin called it a violation of democratic norms. Orban said Je suis Marine
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Title should be renamed to Non-elections in Europe.
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Judges are now deciding elections in the EU?
Itâs quite frustrating that none of the English speaking media coverage that I can find details the fraud that took place. I expect the details were too dull or difficult to explain, so they wimped out.That leaves a giant hole where the above reactions are natural. In all likelihood Le Pen funnelled EU funds into domestic political campaigns as sheâs been convicted of, but by not explaining how that happened the coverage has done more harm than good.
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Yes, because he knows all about democratic norms.
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That seems to be the spin the far right are busily putting on it, to avoid the uncomfortable fact that all over the world, their preferred political candidates keep getting caught selling out to Russia, or plotting/executing coups, or corruptly redirecting public funds to themselves.
No, judges are punishing crime in the EU now. The same would happen here, if youâre found guilty of a criminal offense of sufficient gravity, you wouldnât be able to sit in parliament.
Pity the USA couldnât do the same.
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Are you suggesting that politicians should be above the law, as in the USA?
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Trump got found guilty, (must have been close to being barred from presidential campaign) but the people elected him anyway.
Far right saying that the transgressions possibly could be found all over parliament.
But used as a political weapon in this case.
Iâm suggesting that âpeopleâ were worried that she may have won the next election so found something to ban her from contesting.
This goes back to the investigation by the EU anti- fraud office (OLAF) investigations and report . The OLAF investigations were in parallel with French investigations. It was an issue in the last French Presidential elections.
There was a lot of EL media attention in 2017.
The OLAF report was released on 11 March 2022 , when there was a fair amount of EL media reports.
There was also some detailed EL media reporting in the EU, UK, US and our ABC in September 2024 when the French trial was hot.
ADD
EL TASS has given it a lot of detailed reporting throughout the case at EU and French level. EU Parliament scandals involving different members gets a lot of coverage, particularly in European media .
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Buried about 20 posts deep in the Guardianâs coverage.
The court found Le Pen, eight other people who were EU lawmakers at the time and 12 parliamentary assistants guilty of embezzling EU funds. The defendants were not accused of pocketing the money, but rather of using EU funds to the benefit of their party.
Judge BĂ©nĂ©dicte de Perthuis ruled: âIt was established that all these people were actually working for the party, that their (EU) lawmaker had not given them any tasks.â
âThe investigations also showed that these were not administrative errors ⊠but embezzlement within the framework of a system put in place to reduce the partyâs costs.â
Le Pen, who sat in the front row in court, could be seen at times shaking her head slightly from right to left, indicating ânoâ, while listening to the judge.
The LibĂ©ration daily adds that in total court found evidence of over 40 fictitious contracts over ânearly 12 yearsâ, amounting to âmore than âŹ4.6 millionâ in total.
My interpretation of that is that the EU parliament provides funding for staffers to assist with EU lawmaking. As the EU doesnât want to fund local political apparatus, I expect there would be restrictions on what the EU funded staff can work on. If I have that right and Le Pen and her party abused the EU funding to subsidise the French national side of the party, then it would be a breach of the law.
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Go wider than UK MSM reporting . There are other European MSM sources, French and other.