Marine Le Pen has been declared ineligible to run for president of France. She has been given a suspended prison sentence, she will be barred from standing in elections for five years, and she will have to wear an ankle bracelet for two years. She will also have to pay a fine of €100,000 after she was found guilty of using European Parliament money to pay her own party’s salaries. This has been determined to have been embezzlement but her supporters describe it as a purely technical offence and her disqualification as lawfare.
The dramatic judicial intervention into the French presidential campaign is threatening to deny to voters the choice of the candidate who is ahead in all opinion polls. On the news channels this lunchtime, the question was being posed: is France still a democracy?
The conviction and punishment is being saluted this afternoon by Le Monde and the Parisian commentariat as a huge setback for her Rassemblement National populist party.
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