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2025-04-01 Europe
Populist Marine Le Pen Banned
See also here.
[Breitbart] According to a recent survey from Ifop, Le Pen is the clear frontrunner in the upcoming 2027 presidential election in France. Depending on potential opponents, she recorded between 34 and 37 per cent support. In comparison, her closest rival, Le Harve Mayor Édouard Philippe, only recorded 21 per cent support.
more at the link...
Another from Walking Unvaxxed:
Lawfare against the European right-wing is being taken to a whole new level.
[WhatFinger] Marine Le Pen @MLP_officiel has been convicted for "misusing" European funds and has been BARRED from running for President of France, yet @vonderleyen is under investigation for corruption and refuses to disclose her text messages regarding a 35 BILLION euro deal with Pfizer and is currently the President of the European Commission. Talking about two tier politics.

Prayers for our brothers and sisters in Europe. We have massive challenges here but we have the freedoms to fight most of those challenges. In Europe, freedom is at a premium. Stay strong, y’all. — JD Rucker

The European elite have escalated their lawfare crusade into a full-on blitzkrieg against the right, with Marine Le Pen as their latest scalp. Banned from France’s presidency for misusing EU funds—peanuts compared to the corruption cesspool in Brussels—this is a naked assault on sovereignty. Trump supporters, this is our fight: the globalists are torching democracy to cling to power. Let’s unpack the stench: Le Pen’s convicted over €600,000, while Ursula von der Leyen, queen of the EU swamp, stonewalls an investigation into her shady 35 billion euro Pfizer deal—text messages hidden, accountability zero. She still lords over the European Commission, untouched.

Two-tier justice doesn’t even cover it—this is aristocracy vs. the people. The Left’s playbook is clear: kneecap populist lions like Le Pen who dare roar against open borders and corporate handouts. Sound familiar? They tried it on Trump too. Patriots across continents must unite, expose this double standard, and dismantle their rigged game before it’s too late. — More at Post on X

Just to break down the French charges against Marine Le Pen and other members of her party—the courts allege that she "embezzled" funds by using EU money intended for the EU-wing of National Rally on their national (French) wing. They’re supposed to be separate, but the overlap is basically impossible to avoid and every single European party, including liberal and leftist parties does this.

The fact that they’re going after Le Pen for this is lawfare, plain and simple. The system is being weaponized to go after conservatives and populists over the slightest infraction that the courts would otherwise turn a blind eye to. Marine Le Pen is by far the most popular leader in France and her party has more public support than all of the others, individually. The EU couldn’t beat her in the polls so they used the courts to take her down. — Ian Miles Cheong

More from The Walking Unvaxed:
EXPLAINED: How The Lawfare Against Marine Le Pen Led to Her Prison Sentence and Politics Ban.
[NationalPulse] A French court convicted Marine Le Pen, leader of the populist National Rally (RN) party, on March 31, 2025, of "embezzling" European Parliament funds—but make no mistake, the move was nothing short of politically orchestrated lawfare.

Prosecutors alleged that from 2004 to 2017, during her time as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), Le Pen and 24 co-defendants funneled over €3 million (~$3.2 million) earmarked for assistants to support their Brussels-based parliamentary work into party operations in France. For this, she received a four-year prison term—two years suspended, two under house arrest—a $108,000 fine, and a five-year ban from public office, slamming the door on a projected 2027 presidential election triumph.

Her lawyer, Rodolphe Bosselut, rightly calls the ban a "declaration of civil death." RN president Jordan Bardella notes she is not the only victim: "It is French democracy that is being executed."

’POLITICAL BY DEFINITION.’
To be clear, RN doesn’t deny Le Pen’s assistants performed RN work. They argue that, as the leader of a national movement, advancing the RN platform she was elected on was a perfectly legitimate part of their work—particularly when it comes to fighting European Union overreach into national affairs.

"Parliamentary assistants do not work for the Parliament. They are political assistants to elected officials, political by definition," she argued at trial. "Their role is to assist us in our political work, which is inseparable from our mandate as elected representatives."

Such work is commonplace, even standard, among MEPs’ assistants, and the fact that Le Pen is being singled out is a dead giveaway of bias from a judiciary in lockstep with France’s liberal elite and the EU she’s vowed to defy.

DOUBLE STANDARDS.
Even if you accept that Le Pen violated some technical, selectively enforced interpretation of the European Parliament’s rules around assistants, the 56-year-old’s sentence is clearly disproportionate.

Contrast the iron fist used against her with Christine Lagarde’s velvet-glove treatment. In 2016, Lagarde, then France’s finance minister—later head of the International Monetary Fund, and now the head of the European Central Bank—was convicted of negligence over a €404 million (~$428 million) payout to businessman Bernard Tapie.

The court ruled her guilty but handed down no punishment at all—no fine, no jail, no ban. She sailed into one of Europe’s top jobs without consequence. Lagarde’s negligence dwarfed Le Pen’s €3 million case—but Europe’s elite cradle their own, like Lagarde, while smashing outsiders like Le Pen, whose anti-EU, populist politics threaten their power.

THE ROMANIAN PRECEDENT.
Polls show RN well ahead of the Renaissance party founded by Emmanuel Macron, and Le Pen was favored to win the next presidential election in 2027. Now, however, she will have no opportunity to defeat the establishment—because the French people will not be able to vote for her.

It mirrors the tactics used against Călin Georgescu, the Romanian populist barred from his country’s May 2025 presidential race. Georgescu, a skeptic of the EU and NATO, took a surprise win in the first round of the race last year—only for the courts to step in and cancel the election, ostensibly because voters had been tricked into supporting him by Russia-funded TikToks.

His supporters slammed this as a stitch-up by a rattled establishment, and polls suggested he would win a planned rerun—so the Constitutional Court made his exclusion permanent in a March ruling.

The EU playbook is clear: when populists like Le Pen and Georgescu surge, the EU doesn’t seek to defeat them at the ballot box; it shuts them out. Americans should be thankful similar partisan efforts to stop Donald Trump from standing last November failed, but they should be wary of the way Europe is normalizing such behavior.

Posted by The Walking Unvaxed 2025-04-01 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11164 views ]  Top

#1 A dozen posts in support of this ruling incoming from EC.

Europe is no longer relevant. Whatever they devolve in to, its none of our concern.
Posted by Crusader 2025-04-01 00:14||   2025-04-01 00:14|| Front Page Top

#2 Fury as court bans Marine Le Pen from presidential run and hits her with four-year jail term: Europe's hard-right condemns 'system... that throws aside any candidate who's too right-wing'
Posted by Skidmark 2025-04-01 00:52||   2025-04-01 00:52|| Front Page Top

#3 Europe is no longer relevant.

They ARE trying to start WWIII via their Ukrainian/Baltic proxies - that's irrelevant?
Posted by Grom the Affective 2025-04-01 02:34||   2025-04-01 02:34|| Front Page Top

#4 Some things don't age well...


At this time Marine Le Pen demanded a lifelong ban for politicians who had embezzled funds. And her - then - Front National voted for the law.

The court found beyond any reasonable doubt that this was embezzlement, that the party knew - from their correspondence - that this was illegal and that Marine very much knew it was illegal. That's why the party set up fake contracts to make Europe pay for family members and bodyguards.

The law mandates a temporary ban. The court had the discretion to apply it immediately or not. It decided to do so immediately because Marine Le Pen still denies that what she did was illegal, and so the chances she would do it again were substantial.

If you think corruption is ok because a hard right wing party does it, that's your problem, not mine.

And all that talk about Europe being irrelevant is getting a bit boring. But whatever floats your boat.
Posted by European Conservative 2025-04-01 06:21||   2025-04-01 06:21|| Front Page Top

#5 If you think corruption is ok because a hard right wing party does it, that's your problem, not mine.

My problem is that when they all do it and selectively decide who they're going to go after. Corruption is corruption regardless of color, race, or creed. Either the law is based upon principle or its just ritualistic exercise of power.
Posted by Procopius2k 2025-04-01 10:38||   2025-04-01 10:38|| Front Page Top

#6 Trump compares himself to Marine Le Pen as he tears into France for barring her from politics: 'This is a big deal'
Posted by Skidmark 2025-04-01 12:16||   2025-04-01 12:16|| Front Page Top

#7 The last time French Elites behaved like this, it ended with guillotine.
Posted by Grom the Affective 2025-04-01 12:35||   2025-04-01 12:35|| Front Page Top

#8 I'm sure Europe is still quite relevant to Europeans. I just don't want to get caught up in any of their troubles...not like the USA did in the last century. If diversity means Arabs, I don't want American boys dying for it. If democracy becomes Zelensky's martial law, I don't consider it democracy. I hope the guillotine doesn't start working again but if it does, I would prefer to stay out of it. Let's just say I prefer California wine to French wine. Italian might be OK. James Bond morphed into Christopher Steele and I like Toyota better than Mercedes. Hell, I like Tesla better than Mercedes.
Posted by Abu Uluque 2025-04-01 12:45||   2025-04-01 12:45|| Front Page Top

#9  If you think corruption is ok because a hard right wing party does it, that's your problem, not mine.

That’s why I asked yesterday whether this is something the main political parties do or do not do, if padding the bills is common political practic, even if not precisely in that way. If they all do it — and naturally they voted for the law as well — then I must object to selective prosecution if the main party politicians were not immediately prosecuted for it. If this action is unique to the Le Pen crowd, then they are indeed hoisted by their own petards, and need to learn the lesson.

Posted by trailing wife 2025-04-01 12:49||   2025-04-01 12:49|| Front Page Top

#10 @tw
at this point, radical leftist and Jew hating Mélenchon's party France Unbowed is being investigated over misuse of funds (including his party's use of European Parliament funds). Maybe that's why he didn't look so happy yesterday.
Posted by European Conservative 2025-04-01 12:58||   2025-04-01 12:58|| Front Page Top

#11 *happy sigh* I do love being given answers to my questions…

Thank you, European Conservative — that does answer whether the Le Pen situation is entirely unique.

I am suddenly reminded of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who apparently is sitting his fifth trial for corruption back when he was not yet forcibly retired. Le Monde link (in English)
Posted by trailing wife 2025-04-01 13:17||   2025-04-01 13:17|| Front Page Top

#12 I keep hearing about WWIII, but what does that even mean? Russia is putting everything short of nukes into Ukraine. It literally cannot handle anything more. It also cannot keep this up indefinitely. So unless WWIII is synonymous with Russia lobbing nukes around then ... what, exactly?
Posted by Angstrom 2025-04-01 15:06||   2025-04-01 15:06|| Front Page Top

#13 Off the "Third time ice cream!" pile...

'As Great Mother Russia's dormition
Grows nigh, thoughts of Polish partition
Might well fill her head
But the White and the Red's
Still not dead!"
Little Father: [Gone fishing.]
Posted by Pancho Poodle8452 2025-04-01 21:28||   2025-04-01 21:28|| Front Page Top

#14 Mother plucking Ukraine? People stare.
"Use a pachyderm, Putin mon frere,
Ou peut-etre a goose!"
Good advice for the Rus
Should they try to get down from the bear.
Posted by Pancho Poodle8452 2025-04-01 21:37||   2025-04-01 21:37|| Front Page Top

04:24 Grom the Affective
04:14 Grom the Affective
04:09 Grom the Affective
03:49 Grom the Affective
03:40 Grom the Affective
02:50 Pancho Poodle8452
02:30 Grom the Affective
01:28 Grom the Affective
01:28 Grom the Affective
01:23 Grom the Affective
01:22 Grom the Affective
01:05 Frank G
00:57 Frank G
00:25 DooDahMan
00:18 Bobby
00:16 Skidmark
00:13 Bobby
00:12 Skidmark
00:05 Frank G









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