Le Pen and her allies first stood trial in 2024 on accusations that they swindled\u00a0European taxpayers out of an estimated \u20ac4.5 million between 2004 and 2016 by\u00a0hiring\u00a0assistants who\u00a0spent most of their time on domestic party politics\u00a0rather than their official European Parliament duties.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though the codefendants denied any wrongdoing and tried to frame the proceedings as a political witch hunt, the\u00a0court\u00a0was\u00a0unconvinced in the face of the prosecution\u2019s compelling\u00a0case.\u00a0Evidence\u00a0included a text from one of the accused asking if he could be introduced to the MEP he was\u00a0purportedly working\u00a0for\u00a0several\u00a0months after his contract started,\u00a0and the revelation that another\u00a0assistant exchanged\u00a0just one text message\u00a0with the MEP they worked for\u00a0over the course of their\u00a0eight-month contract.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 56-year-old former MEP was found\u00a0guilty and\u00a0handed\u00a0a\u00a0five-year ban on\u00a0running for\u00a0public office. The punishment effectively knocked\u00a0her out of the 2027 race to replace\u00a0term-limited\u00a0Emmanuel Macron, which she was leading according to most polls.<\/p>\n
Le Pen\u00a0immediately\u00a0appealed, and\u00a0during fast-tracked legal proceedings\u00a0earlier this year<\/a>\u00a0she\u00a0conceded\u00a0\u2014 after months of proclaiming her innocence \u2014 that\u00a0she may have unwittingly broken the law.\u00a0Her\u00a0legal team\u00a0then\u00a0challenged the\u00a0initial\u00a0verdict on technical legal grounds\u00a0and argued\u00a0that the ban\u00a0is\u00a0disproportionate.<\/p>\n Despite the change in strategy, Le Pen\u2019s\u00a0prospects\u00a0on Tuesday still\u00a0look dim. She\u00a0appeared to lose\u00a0some of her fighting spirit\u00a0during the\u00a0appeal\u2019s\u00a0final days<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0said\u00a0she would not mount a presidential bid<\/a>\u00a0if\u00a0the\u00a0ban is\u00a0upheld\u00a0or she is sentenced to wear an electronic ankle bracelet.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s no longer up to me,\u201d Le Pen said of her presidential aspirations in an interview with LCI television on Wednesday. \u201cBut I\u2019ll continue to fight. I\u2019ll continue to be an activist. And if I\u2019m just an activist, I\u2019ll just be an activist.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Le Pen and her allies first stood trial in 2024 on accusations that they swindled\u00a0European taxpayers out of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[18,1395,168,7332,1573,115,1934,8970,1937],"class_list":["post-25888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brussels","tag-brussels","tag-courts","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-euroskeptics","tag-far-right","tag-france","tag-jordan-bardella","tag-marine-le-pen","tag-meps"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116854303396186826","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}