PARIS: French far-right leader Marine Le Pen\u2019s political future hangs in the balance at an appeals trial in Paris, which may damage her party\u2019s ambitions of radically changing France\u2019s direction through anti-immigration and nationalist policies.<\/p>\n
Le Pen will answer the judges\u2019 questions for two days starting Tuesday as she seeks to overturn a March ruling that found her guilty of misusing European Parliament funds in the hiring of aides from 2004 to 2016.<\/p>\n
She was given a five-year ban from holding elected office, two years of house arrest with an electronic bracelet and a further two-year suspended sentence.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s why the appeals trial could significantly impact France\u2019s political landscape:<\/p>\n
France\u2019s 2027 presidential race is at stake<\/p>\n
If she\u2019s able to run, Le Pen, 57, is expected to be among top contenders in the 2027 presidential election, possibly the front-runner, according to opinion polls.<\/p>\n
She finished runner-up to Emmanuel Macron in 2017 and 2022, making her one of the most experienced senior politicians in the country.<\/p>\n
Le Pen has been for the past 15 years trying to bring the far right into France\u2019s political mainstream, striving to remove the stigma of racism and antisemitism that has clung to the party.<\/p>\n
Her National Rally party has become since 2024 the largest single political group in France\u2019s powerful lower house of parliament, even though it fell short of having a majority of seats.<\/p>\n
If Le Pen is ruled ineligible, she has already designated her 30-year-old prot\u00e9g\u00e9, Jordan Bardella, as her successor in the presidential bid.<\/p>\n
The fraud case involved money for hiring party aides<\/p>\n
The National Rally and 11 of its officials, including Le Pen, are accused of having used money intended for European Union parliamentary aides to pay instead staff who worked for the party between 2004 and 2016, in violation of the 27-nation bloc\u2019s regulations.<\/p>\n
Some EU money was used to pay for Le Pen\u2019s bodyguard, as well as her personal assistant. Another aide worked as a graphic designer. Others worked as aides to party officials they had no employment contract with.<\/p>\n
Le Pen\u2019s sister, Yann, also was paid as an EU parliamentary aide when she was in charge of organizing the party\u2019s big events.<\/p>\n
The legal proceedings stem from a 2015 alert raised to French authorities about possible fraud by Martin Schulz, then-president of the European Parliament.<\/p>\n
Le Pen denies wrongdoing<\/p>\n
Le Pen and other party officials acknowledged they hired people to do multiple tasks for the party but denied wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
During the first trial in 2024, Le Pen argued all the work done by aides was justified and aboveboard. She said their missions had to be adapted to the lawmakers\u2019 various activities primarily focusing on the domestic scene, which explains they had diverse tasks. She also acknowledged some of the aides were \u201cshared\u201d by several elected officials for organization purposes.<\/p>\n
The role of an aide \u201cdepends on each person\u2019s skills. Some wrote speeches for me, and some handled logistics and coordination,\u201d Le Pen said at the time.<\/p>\n
However, when the appeals trial opened last week, Le Pen\u2019s defense appeared more focused on arguing the party may have made unintentional mistakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did not feel we had committed any offense,\u201d Le Pen told the court. She said European Parliament officials did not at the time tell her party that the way it was hiring people was potentially against any rules.<\/p>\n
March ruling says Le Pen part of \u2018fraudulent system\u2019<\/p>\n
A Paris court ruled in March that Le Pen was at the heart of \u201ca fraudulent system\u201d that her party used to siphon off EU parliament funds worth 2.9 million euros ($3.4 million). The ruling described the embezzlement as \u201ca democratic bypass\u201d unfair to competitors.<\/p>\n
The court noted \u201cthe seriousness of the acts committed\u201d and \u201cthe harm caused both to citizens\u2019 trust in public life and to the interests of the European Parliament\u201d to justify the sentence.<\/p>\n
The judges handed down guilty verdicts to eight other current or former members of her party who, like Le Pen, previously served as European Parliament lawmakers. Also convicted were 12 people who served as parliamentary aides and three others. Some did not appeal the ruling.<\/p>\n
Several options in Le Pen\u2019s trial<\/p>\n
The five-week trial that started on Jan. 13 will reexamine the case from scratch, reassessing evidence and hearing witnesses and defendants again. A new ruling will be issued at a later date, likely before summer.<\/p>\n
Several scenarios are possible.<\/p>\n
Le Pen could be cleared and possibly emerge strengthened, paving the way for her presidential campaign. Or, she could be convicted and barred from running, forcing her to support Bardella\u2019s candidacy.<\/p>\n
Bardella\u2019s popularity has surged in recent years, particularly among younger voters, though some within the party have questioned his leadership. His relative inexperience compared with Le Pen, scripted responses during interviews and apparent lack of expertise on some economic and international topics may work against a potential presidential candidate.<\/p>\n
Another option is for Le Pen to be found guilty, but with a lighter sentence that still allows her to run.<\/p>\n
Le Pen\u2019s party has criticized the judges<\/p>\n
Le Pen denounced the March ruling as \u201ca democratic scandal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe (judicial) system brought out the nuclear bomb,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd if it is using such a powerful weapon against us, it\u2019s obviously because we\u2019re about to win the elections.\u201d<\/p>\n
National party officials alleged it was a politically motivated decision implemented by what they describe as left-wing judges, which echoes language used by US President Donald Trump in 2023 when he said prosecutors were engaged in a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d to damage his campaign.<\/p>\n
In France, judges are independent magistrates and cannot be removed from their posts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope I\u2019ll be able to convince the judges of my innocence,\u201d Le Pen said last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS: French far-right leader Marine Le Pen\u2019s political future hangs in the balance at an appeals trial in Paris, which may damage her party\u2019s ambitions of radically changing France\u2019s direction through anti-immigration and nationalist policies. Le Pen will answer the judges\u2019 questions for two days starting Tuesday as she seeks to overturn a March ruling …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":92480,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92483,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92468\/revisions\/92483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}