Prosecutor seeks jail and election ban for Le Pen
The Paris prosecutor has requested a five-year prison sentence and a five-year ban from holding political office for far-right leader Marine Le Pen in connection with an illegal party funding case.
Nicolas Barret has called for the ban to take effect immediately after the verdict, even if the defense appeals, effectively preventing Le Pen from running for president in 2027.
Le Pen, along with over 20 senior party members, faces accusations of hiring assistants to work on party matters, instead of fulfilling their duties for the European Parliament, which paid their salaries.
Le Pen, who denies the allegations, condemned the prosecution’s request as an “outrage” and claimed the goal was to “ruin” her National Rally (RN) party. “I believe the prosecution intends to deprive the French people of their right to choose their leader,” she said following the hearing in Paris, where she is on trial with 24 other defendants.
Le Pen lost to Emmanuel Macron in the 2022 presidential election, with 41.45% of the vote to Macron’s 58.55%, but the RN remains the largest party in the National Assembly.
In addition to the prison sentence and political ban, a fine of €300,000 (£249,000; $319,000) is also being sought against Le Pen. The proposed prison sentence is “convertible,” meaning Le Pen may not necessarily serve time in jail, according to AFP.
However, the ban on political office would take effect immediately and would not be delayed by the appeals process, as some had been expecting.
The prosecutor asked for the ban to apply to all 25 defendants.
“The law applies to all,” Mr Barret told the court.
The defendants plus the party itself, as a legal entity, are accused of syphoning EU parliamentary funds to pay the salaries of party workers.
According to the prosecution case, Le Pen presided over a system for several years in which RN staff members from Paris were “taken on” as EU parliamentary assistants in Brussels.
It is being argued in court that these RN officials rarely set foot in the EU parliament and had no role there.
Le Pen has argued that parliamentary assistants paid for by the Brussels assembly were naturally involved in politics because that was what drew them to the job in the first place.
RN chairman Jordan Bardella, who is not a defendant in the case, called the prosecution’s demands an “assault on democracy” in a post on X.
“The prosecution is not acting justly,” he said. “It is seeking to persecute and take revenge on Marine Le Pen.”
A lawyer for the European Parliament, Patrick Maisonneuve, said he was not surprised by the sentence being requested.
“There is a consistency in the prosecution’s demands,” he was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
The trial is due to continue until 27 November.
