PARIS — Marine Le Pen stepped into Paris’ modern, state-of-the-art courthouse on Sept. 30 looking calm and composed, confident that the legal proceedings about to unfold would be nothing but a hiccup in a political career lasting a quarter century.
The longtime face of the French far right had arrived for the beginning of a trial that could hurt her chances at following Emmanuel Macron into the Elysée palace, but Le Pen seemed relatively sanguine about her future — at least at first.
The case, which concerns allegations of embezzling European Union funds, had dogged her for years in Brussels without impacting her political success back home. Sitting in the first row of the defendants’ section, dressed in an all-black pantsuit, nothing in her demeanor gave any indication that this latest hurdle would be insurmountable.
As she took the stand for the first time later that day, the 56-year-old was deferential, positioning herself as respectful of the institutional process. Her allies pointed to her training as a lawyer as evidence that she would handily navigate the court.
“I’ll answer any question the court decides to ask me,” Le Pen told the presiding judge, Bénédicte de Perthuis.
That cooperative spirt vanished as the weeks went on, when in hearing after hearing the government presented a seemingly airtight case against Le Pen and the 24 others accused of illicitly using millions of euros from the European Parliament to pay parliamentary assistants to work on party business within France instead of on EU-related affairs.
Defendants struggled to respond when confronted with proof that the work of the parliamentary assistants was unrelated to the European Parliament. Prosecutors unearthed damning evidence, such as text messages from one of the assistants asking to “be introduced” to the member of the European Parliament that he supposedly worked for, and to be taught “how a session at the European Parliament works” — three months after the assistant allegedly started his job. Another purported assistant was only able to provide a single text message and one agenda item to prove that he had worked for an MEP. There were no records of emails or phone calls between the pair.
In total, prosecutors detailed to the court 46 various contracts that were under investigation. The evidence was enough to warrant guilty verdicts against all the accused, they said.
The National Rally, the prosecution alleged, had treated the European Parliament as a “cash cow” — the European Parliament claimed the entire episode cost taxpayers €4.5 million — and had “undermined the rules of democracy.”
Le Pen and her co-defendants have all professed their innocence. But after two months on trial, they appear to have realized that the likelihood of a guilty verdict has increased — and that its consequences could upend the career of one of France’s most powerful politicians.
That became particularly apparent when the prosecution asked the judge to hand down fines, prison sentences and temporary bans from running for or holding public office for all the accused, with penalties calibrated to their respective levels of involvement in the supposed scheme.
The harshest punishment was saved for Le Pen, who was accused both as a former MEP and as the party’s leader during several years of the purported wrongdoing between 2004 and 2016. Prosecutors recommended handing her a five-year prison sentence, three of which would be suspended, a €300,000 fine and a five-year ban on running for public office — including the presidency. Crucially, they requested that her sentence be enforced immediately, even in the event of an appeal. An appeal typically delays penalties, but this case could prove an exception.
What was once a rarely discussed embezzlement scandal now has the potential to throw the National Rally into disarray and to end Le Pen’s political career.
Judgment day is set to be revealed on Wednesday, when de Perthuis will tell the defendants the date they should expect to hear a verdict.
Back to her old self
Le Pen and her acolytes have now given up on the kind of reverence they displayed on day one of the trial. Instead, they’ve embraced full-out confrontation with the judge and prosecutors overseeing the case, hoping to at least win in the court of public opinion.
In a TV interview last week, Le Pen claimed the legal proceedings against the National Rally were part of a political scheme to target her, and had been spearheaded back in 2014 by two left-wing politicians: former President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz and France’s then-Justice Minister Christiane Taubira.
Le Pen and the National Rally have also framed comments delivered in court by one of the prosecutors, Lousie Neyton, as proof of bias. During her closing remarks, Neyton said it would be “too painful” for her to suggest an acquittal in the case of one assistant’s contract, despite acknowledging that the prosecution had little material evidence to prove that illicit conduct had occurred. The contract in question did not concern Le Pen.
While such conspiratorial rhetoric may resemble U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s “witch hunt” refrain, it’s in some ways a return to form for the French far right.
The predecessor to Le Pen’s National Rally, the National Front, was a fringe political movement in France known mostly for the antisemitic, anti-immigrant and conspiratorial rhetoric of its founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father.
The younger Le Pen has spent more than a decade trying to rebrand her party as a respectable, moderate political force ready to seize power. That has meant dropping some of the party’s less popular positions, such as leaving the eurozone, and kicking out undesirables — like her father.
Jean-Marie Le Pen used to rail against the alleged left-wing biases of “red judges” in France, and now his daughter appears to be launching a similar mudslinging campaign against prosecutors and the judiciary while also recalibrating her staunch Euroskepticism.
“Time and time again, your mind was made up, our arguments dismissed,” Le Pen told de Perthuis during her last day of testimony. “It all made me feel very unsettled.”
Last week, National Rally President Jordan Bardella — Le Pen’s likely successor if she is barred from running in the next presidential election — said that no one with a criminal record could run for office under the party’s colors.
The policy is designed to help the National Rally better vet candidates after the party found itself dragged down by controversial figures during legislative elections over the summer.
When asked if it would apply to a convicted Le Pen, however, Bardella struggled to answer.
Marine Le Pen to learn verdict date in trial that could destroy her political career
Source: Viral Showbiz Pinay
0 Comments