Donald Trump has demanded France “free” Marine Le Pen and labelled her ban from running for office over a “bookkeeping error” a “witch hunt” just like he was subjected to. The Telegraph has more.
The hard-Right leader was found guilty of embezzling EU funds to pay party staff in a court ruling in Paris on Monday.
She was barred from politics from five years – preventing her from running in the next French Presidential election – and handed a four-year prison sentence, two of which will be served under house arrest and the other two will be suspended.
On Friday, the US President threw his support behind Le Pen and likened the affair to his own experience of being pursued and convicted.
“The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech, and censor their Political Opponent, this time going so far as to put that Opponent in prison,” he wrote on his Truth Social account.
Continuing, he said he did not know Le Pen personally but that he appreciates “how hard she worked for so many years”.
“She suffered losses, but kept on going, and now, just before what would be a Big Victory, they get her on a minor charge that she probably knew nothing about – Sounds like a ‘bookkeeping’ error to me,” Mr Trump said.
“It is all so bad for France, and the Great French People, no matter what side they are on. FREE MARINE LE PEN!”
In the Spectator, James Tidmarsh explains the options open to Le Pen and the arguments she will make to try to overturn her conviction.
Le Pen is appealing the decision, which was handed down by the Paris criminal tribunal – the lowest tier of the French judiciary. The case now moves to the Court of Appeal, where her team will seek to overturn both the conviction itself and the penalty of ineligibility.
Le Pen will argue first that the misappropriation charge itself is questionable. Le Pen was convicted of using European Parliament funds to pay party staff – a practice widely acknowledged as common in Brussels. The court found no personal enrichment: the money went to party work. The defence contends that the line between parliamentary and political work is inherently blurry for any elected official – particularly in a body like the European Parliament, where national politics and European mandates are tightly interwoven. In short, her team says she is being punished for doing what everyone in Brussels has always done – and under a law that should never have been applied in the first place.
Second, Le Pen will argue that the law used to bar her from office – the loi Sapin II– should not apply retroactively. The misconduct for which she’s been convicted dates from 2004 to 2016. But the provision of the Sapin II Act that allows judges to impose immediate ineligibility for financial offences only came into force in 2017. Le Pen’s legal team will argue that applying it retroactively violates the principle that harsher penalties cannot be imposed for past conduct.
The Paris Court of Appeal has issued a statement saying it would examine the case “within a timeframe that should allow a decision by summer 2026”, which on the face of it allows enough time, should nothing go wrong.
Le Pen’s allies in Parliament are also looking at amending the law to distinguish between offences involving personal enrichment and those that do not and restoring the normal principle of delaying any punishment while appeals are ongoing. Though how changing the law now would help her after her convictions is unclear, unless it impacts on the appeal of course.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Well done Donald.We are not going to win the fight playing by the Queensbury Rules and Donald knows exactly what comes next and a miracle he was not killed to shut him up.
Marquis of Two-Tier rules – refs bought, Marquis rings time and only left hooks allowed (or so he thinks).
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
Compare the Tronald to that useless globalist troll Starmtard who says nothing about Le Pen, probably planning to ‘Le Pen’, Farage who imo does not have the balls of Le Pen or Trump and is prob not the right man to do what needs to be done.
UK elite – fully supports the fascism and totalitarianism of the globalists.
Yes, given Two Tier’s track record you would not be surprised at him finding some way to lawfare Farage but as you suggest, The Messiah is not the man to save us and has shown this by pushing some flaky ex-Tory – and many other parties – woman ahead of the local man who stood last time out in Runcorn. It is a big ask to win in a seat where adding Tory and Reform votes would have still given Henry Cooper or whatever his name is a 7000 vote majority. Be interesting though as I guess the I am the leader of the army of the Willing bounce for Two Tier has passed and we have Awful April hammering the majority of people.
Nigel is all we have got and we need to rally around him if we have any hope of taking out the Uniparties.
Meanwhile Donald, Elon. RFK and JD can do as much damage as poss to the elite minorities.
First hit may be ROI and enticing back all the US Companies.
I tend to agree. He appears to be too centrist, but I’m hoping that is because he actually wants to get elected and change things, and not be seen as a right wing protest party that achieves nothing. Unfortunately Britain is not ready for our version of the AfD. IMHO the man who spent half his life campaigning for BREXIT, and who is also a good friend of DJT, has have some of the right qualities.
The level of vitriol fired at Nigel and RUK indicates to me that the focus groups are showing much more support for RUK than the Uniparties believed.
Hard to believe, but we also have less propaganda in the media than Germany or the ROI which is why they are going downhill faster.
The ruling techno-bureaucrats have for decades now been running things with almost no resistance or pushback. And that is how we’ve ended up with the techno-totalitarian states which now comprise “the west”.
Trump seems to be the one major force visible pushing back and trying to return things to normality. And everything he is doing is linked in some way. The immigration control, DOGE, the tariffs, the fight with European countries over defence, drilling for oil and gas and ditching climate change policies. It’s all linked. It’s a massive fight back on all fronts agains what the techno-totalitarians have been building up for decades.
It’s either going to be a long, hard, painful fight – in the best of cases. If Trump can keep it up and someone can take the mantle from him after 4 years.
(BTW, in the background, sort of, the end of LIBOR – controlled by European banks – and the establishment of SOFR – controlled by the Fed, is also part of the fight back. But that’s just too esoteric for the general population to understand. But it’s also a big part.)
SOFR
The secured overnight financing rate (SOFR) is a benchmark rate that reflects the cost of borrowing overnight, backed by U.S. Treasury securities in the repo market. The rate is based on actual transactions, making it a risk-free, secured rate indicative of market conditions.
LIBOR
The London Inter-Bank Offered Rate was an interest rate average calculated from estimates submitted by the leading banks in London. Each bank estimated what it would be charged were it to borrow from other banks. It was the primary benchmark, along with the Euribor, for short-term interest rates around the world.
Wikipedia
The globalists don’t like it ‘up em! DT is taking them on.
Le Pen is so far right that she has taken EU-level action against the AfD because of persistent rumours originating from its German political enemies and because one MEP of it publically stated that not all people serving in the armed SS (Waffen-SS) were criminals. This should be an absolutely uncritical statement outside of circles of the aggressive-progressive left to whom everybody except themselves is a Nazi criminal as it was a regular branch of the German armed forces and replenished via conscription. In UN talk, this means it was composed of slave soldiers. Doesn’t matter — they’re guilty of being German! Afuera! (I’m guessing this literally means Into the fire!)
At the very least, Le Pen has a hatred for Germans which doesn’t care for facts anymore¹. More likely, she’s another spineless opportunist aka a professional politician.
¹ On the other hand, who hasn’t? After all, it’s – next to climate change and the gender quagmire – an official world religion and one everyone agrees with. Except people who are in jail for blaspheming against it.
The EU will not make the rules clearer while the elites benefit. Only if insurgent parties begin to gain power will the elites want clarity.
Similarly with the UK. When a Parliamentary aid assists developing policy or campaigning is that fraud ?
HM Opposition get money for policy research to help them do their job. Is it corrupt when they fail to effectively oppose and usr the cash for party purposes.
What they can legally do in Parliament is bad enough re expenses, now they’re getting Council Tax paid for by the public. It is like they’re trolling the public in some sick experiment.
It was going to get paid by the public either way. The scandalous bit is that the MPs who decided this awarded themselves a pay rise supposed to neutralize the effect their decision would otherwise have had on themselves.
A globalist fascist stitch up straight from Davos via Brussels since the EU would have been required to furnish the ‘evidence’. As Dr North, who had experience working at the EU for UKIP until the Messiah got an underling to tell him he was sacked for showing him up, has explained, EVERY party does the same thing and yet nobody was bothered until Macaroon was in danger of losing in 2027. Hopefully Trump will ramp up the tariffs on France.
Why do you believe (as you apparently do) fining the people who’d have voted for Le Pen for trading with the USA would bother the French president?
This is great news— glad to see him echoing the words of ex-President of Brazil Bolsonaro in support of Le Pen.
Exclusive: Brazil’s Bolsonaro calls ruling against Le Pen ‘judicial activism’ | Reuters
Here’s an article by Breitbart’s Kurt Zindulka with more information on her case:
One in Five EU Lawmakers Broke Same Rule as Le Pen: Report
“…demonstrating double standards, with reports claiming that over a hundred other European politicians violated the same rules without facing prosecution.”
“The report found that the other 138 MEPs were merely instructed to return the misused funds to the EU Parliament before criminal charges could be brought.”
From the first article:
France’s High Council of the Judiciary in a statement expressed its concern over what it called “virulent reactions” provoked by the ruling.
“Threats personally targeting the magistrates in charge of the case, just like statements by political leaders on the merits of the prosecution or the conviction, particularly during the deliberations, cannot be accepted in a democratic society,” it said, calling for moderation.
Insofar credible threats against the magistrates in charge of the case have been made, that’s for the proper authorities to investigate. But the French High Council of the Judiciary has certainly no jurisdiction over anyone outside of France and I doubt that its authority in France includes barring people from expressing opinions about a case which differ from those of the judges. The implied claim of infallibility and apparent desire to censor expression of political opinions is what should really be unacceptable in a democratic society. Especially considering that employing the hackneyed It’s a threat to democracy! trope makes it absolutely clear that the judges in question are indeed lefty activists who made a political decision.
Well said.
Oh no! Now it seems that Marine Le Pen made the terrible mistake of trusting Macron’s closest ally, and abstained from the crucial vote, handing him the Presidency of the Constitutional Council which has just sentenced her to prison !!!
Le Pen dug her own grave by allowing Macron ally to take over France’s Constitutional Council
“After a Paris court found nine National Rally (RN) MEPs, including Marine Le Pen, guilty and banned Le Pen from running for public office, critics are not surprised. After all, French President Macron’s close confidant heads the council that decided Le Pen’s fate, and she abstained from the vote on his presidency, handing him his win.”
“The ruling essentially takes out the top contender for the presidential race in 2027, with Le Pen leading recent polls. And this is clearly good news for Macron.”
” Macron appointed Ferrand as his nominee to head up the Constitutional Council in February, which then had to be approved by parliament. He was ironically VOTED IN AS PRESIDENT BY A SINGLE VOTE, with Le Pen’s party abstaining, thus handing him the win.”
“Now, the council has ruled that Le Pen cannot run in the 2027 presidential election, without even waiting for a final binding decision.”
Worse and worse! “Ferrand gave an interview to Le Figaro in 2023, in which he openly argued for AMENDING THE FRENCH CONSTITUTION TO ALLOW MACRON TO RUN FOR A THIRD TERM AS PRESIDENT.”
Talk about outrageous corruption! And Marine Le Pen trusted him! Now she’s been sentenced to prison, barred from the election she was sure to win.
What on earth possessed her to do such a daft and dangerous thing???