oh dear, when did that happen? Guilty until proven innocent?? Sounds Trumpian to me.
The mind boggles. Russian loans for political movements in other countries? Seems legal in France?!
Russians can’t make their mind up about fascism; fighting it in the Ukraine, supporting it in France?
How much did Trump borrow? (At what interest rate? 
)
" loan was finally repaid on Sep 2023"
money transfers during sanctions?
Why was my post removed, and by whom?
Hate to interrupt the full throttle whataboutary but wasn’t it the judicial system rather than ‘the left’?
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The French justice system chose courage over surrender. The law was clear, and so was the court in its sentencing: no special treatment for Marine Le Pen, no deference to the powerful, no using a candidacy for office as an excuse to break the law with impunity.
For more than a decade, from 2004 to 2016, Le Pen’s reactionary rightwing party – named the Front National until 2018, when it became the Rassemblement National (RN) – operated an organised scheme to embezzle public funds by creating fictitious parliamentary assistant jobs at the European parliament, and to break other financial rules, in effect using European public money to finance a debt-ridden party domestically. Under a French anti-corruption law passed in 2016, the guilty verdict rendered against Le Pen comes with a sentence of ineligibility to run for office. The ban is for the next five years, effective immediately, which means that the sentence will hold all the way through an appeals process and will almost certainly torpedo any chance of her running for president in 2027.
Many will see parallels between the RN’s response to this verdict and the way that Donald Trump rallied the anger of his base last summer, after a court in New York found him guilty of a criminal hush-money scheme during the 2016 election. Indeed, Jordan Bardella, the 29-year-old likely successor to Le Pen (who led RN during the summer’s unanticipated legislative elections), is already playing the victim card, declaring that French democracy has been “killed”.
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I disagree. I do see special treatment for Le Pen. Only 4 years, two suspended. Other 2 not custodial but walking around with a bracelet. No fine. No requirement to repay the Four Million Euros she helped steal.
Bob Menendez, Eric Adams…Dems the last time I looked.
Apparently, trashing the Capital makes you a pardonable hero, but torching a Tesla makes you a terrorist. (although Tesla’s history of self-immolation is probably going to be suitable defence).
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Excellent. Prosecute by crime, not by party affiliation.
And report accordingly!
E.g. the “mostly peaceful” BLM riots that just happened to kill quite a few vs the no less violent J6. Last time I checked only one got condemned by the Dems. The same applies to the general tone in the lying media.
With that said, some positive cases don’t refute the clear bias on both sides. I trust you wouldn’t argue that there’s none or reasonably little.
The 2nd part of your post however is just childish nonsense.
And of course this thread is on Le Pen and France.
“Nulla poena sine lege”, no punishment without a law. And new laws don’t apply retroactively. Since Le Pen’s crimes apparently ended 2016, this new law isn’t applicable.
But of course this goes against the totally inacceptable right, and that’s different. So different in fact that even the most fundamental legal principles get thrown overboard.
Presumably the embezzlement / fake jobs scam would still count, though. The clutching at straws and new trend to project to the opposite ends of the political spectrum to defend the indefensible is just embarrassingly cringe.
She, and a not-insignificant number of others, were caught pilfering what is essentially tax-payers money. Grubby.
The only exception here is that Marine Le Pen is known outside France.
Other guys like the ex-leader of the Socialist Party also went down for embezzlement of 136k EUR last year. It’s sad that the money from his government position as was used for personal uses such as apartment rent, personal contributions to Socialist Party, family travel and to cover fines from previous penal procedures. When people think about corrupt politicians they see a life of luxury and excess…this poor idiot was stealing to pay for rent and fines. So, ever heard of Jean-Christophe Cambadélis? I assume not, and that’s the only difference with Marine Le Pen.
The case of Le Pen is also sad. Deviating money from her Euro parliament position to pay people working for her party in France. The saddest part was hiring family members for these jobs.
Why people would break the law and kill their careers for 100-300k? It’s quite feasible to generate that income legally. If they can’t generate the income and cannot resist the impulse of stealing, that tells a lot about them.
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And she has the right to appeal of course.
It seems insane, I know, but think of the state of her party (basically bankrupt) when she took over from her father. These money (and it wasn’t only that) helped her rebuild the party.
The investigation against her started in 2015, and the decision to prosecute was made in 2023 so it is a stretch to link it timewise to the next presidential election.
Well he definitely lived beyond his means then…I think these idiots are convinced they deserve more than what they legally make.
8 years to make the case? Merely 4 months after her announcement that 2027 would be her last candidacy the prosecution announces the decision to prosecute.
That’s some eerily odd timing.
The far-right always has to play victim. That is how they can create a permission structure for blaming “the legacy system” for everything and never any of them or their voters has to take responsibility for their own shortcomings.
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It seems detournement de fonds publiques (embezzlement of public funds) is a “Délit” with a prescription of 6 years counting from the day the infraction was discovered. By looking at the dates, now or never.
Turns out the article is sloppy. Big surprise there - not.
While she had been found guilty in 2018 (improperly paid an EU-MP assistant, to repay €300k), her appeal was rejected in 2020 making the 2018 ruling final. But this isn’t what led to yesterday’s verdict.
What did lead to the verdict is the 2022 OLAF (EU anti-fraud office) fraud investigaton. That report was published april 2022, which triggered french proceedings and led to yesterday’s verdict.
(sidenote: an open investigation interrupts the statute-of-limitations countdown in France, something we should copy)
So whenever the french prosecutors may have determined there’s fraud, there was plenty time remaining. However it’s difficult to argue for politically motivated shenaniganism given the official charge one year later.
What I still find problematic is the effectiveness of the ban despite an appeal as that effectively removes due process. But that’s a general remark as it appears to be common practice.
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Anyone remembers Marine Le Pen telling the following on live TV when talking about the embezzlement investigation on François Fillon and his family during the 2017 presidential election?
“The French are legitimately asking themselves a question: who is the real Fillon? Isn’t he a man who loves money and who could have maneuvered to enrich himself? That is the essential question,” she said.
I hate to link to twitter, but have not found other source of this TF1 interview. It’s also quite symbolic that this was shared from Mrs. Le Pen twitter account.
Fun fact, back on Jan 28 2017 the TF1 talking head already asked about the money deviated from European Parliament by Mrs. Le Pen to her party in France (RN).
Also, the Affaire Fillon was called a political assassination.
Nothing changes…
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All said and done and Marine being Marine, it’s still very disappointing. No wonder people’s trust in politicians is so low, in general…