https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNE5Uta7u8A

French politics has been rocked by the news that Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally (Rassemblement National), has been banned from running for public office for five years. The decision comes after a court found her guilty of embezzling European Union funds to finance her party.

In addition to the political ban, Le Pen has received a four-year prison sentence, with two years under electronic monitoring and two years suspended. This ruling effectively ends her chances of running in the 2027 French presidential election, a race in which she was expected to be a strong contender against President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist movement.

But what does this mean for the future of the French far-right? Can the National Rally survive without its long-time leader at the helm?

Kamal and Camilla Speak to The Telegraph’s Henry Samuel
In this episode, Kamal and Camilla turn to Henry Samuel, The Telegraph’s Paris Correspondent, for expert analysis on the fallout from this dramatic verdict.

Together, they explore key questions:

What impact will Marine Le Pen’s ban have on the National Rally’s political future?

Can her protégé, Jordan Bardella, step up as the new face of the French far-right?

How will this shake up the 2027 presidential race?

Will Le Pen appeal the ruling, and could she still make a comeback?

With France’s political landscape now more uncertain than ever, the discussion dives into whether Bardella, the 28-year-old rising star of the National Rally, has the charisma and political strategy to lead the party to victory.

As one of the most polarizing figures in European politics, Le Pen’s downfall could reshape the balance of power in France and beyond.

Don’t miss this deep dive into one of the biggest political stories in France. Listen now to hear expert insights and what’s next for the far-right in Europe.

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bQcdLimaBc

In a shocking verdict, French nationalist leader Marine Le Pen has been banned from public office for five years over alleged embezzlement of EU funds—charges she fiercely denies. Le Pen calls the ruling a politically motivated attack ahead of the 2027 presidential election. The verdict has ignited outrage across Europe’s nationalist movements. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Italy’s Matteo Salvini have condemned the ruling, calling it an attempt to silence opposition voices. Even former U.S. President Donald Trump has drawn parallels to his own legal battles. Is this a crackdown on nationalism, or justice being served? Watch our in-depth analysis as we break down the implications of this ruling and its impact on European politics.

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

French prosecutors on Thursday requested a seven-year jail sentence and a 300,000-euro fine for French ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy for allegedly taking millions of euros from late Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi to help his 2007 election campaign.

Sarkozy has been on trial since January on charges of "concealing the embezzlement of public funds, passive corruption, illegal campaign financing and criminal conspiracy with a view to committing a crime". For in-depth analysis and a deeper perspective, FRANCE 24's François Picard welcomes Philippe Moreau-Chevrolet, Professor of Political Communication at Sciences Po, Chairman of MCBG Conseil and Senior Partner at Iconic.

https://www.france24.com/en/video/20250327-if-sarkozy-were-to-be-convicted-and-imprisoned-it-would-have-huge-political-repercussions

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

What was Marine Le Pen found "guilty" of?
by Thierry Meyssan

To bar Marine Le Pen from running for the French presidency, a court of first instance convicted her of "misappropriation of public funds," not the other way around. It wasn’t the offense she was charged with that led to her being stripped of her right to be ineligible, but it was invented to justify this sentence.
Strangely, no one in the political class saw fit to point out that the Presidency of the European Parliament has changed its conception of the role of MEPs and now considers those who persist in practicing their original role as MEPs to be criminals.

Marine Le Pen was sentenced on March 31, 2025, for "embezzlement of public funds" to four years’ imprisonment, two of which were suspended, a €100,000 fine, and five years of ineligibility with provisional execution, that is, even before any possible appeal. Twenty-four other officials of the National Rally and the party itself were sentenced.

The French political class was immediately divided between those who welcomed the presidential favorite’s elimination from the race and those who deplored it. Naturally, no one dared to speak out directly, but all affirmed that they supported "the rule of law" or denounced the "tyranny of judges."

Behind this reaction to a historic decision by three judges independent of political power, but who clearly understood the prosecution’s demands, no one dares to address the underlying issue of the dispute between France and the presidency of the European Parliament. The facts being prosecuted all predate 2015. Yet, it is impossible to understand why the elected members of the National Rally were convicted, even though they were convinced they had not violated the law, without being aware of this dispute. Here is the explanation:

At the end of the Second World War, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill developed a plan to pacify European differences through the creation of common institutions between states. This was not yet a European Union, but rather a body allowing European governments to meet and negotiate on a permanent basis, or an organization bringing together parliamentarians from European states to debate together. Ultimately, ten states merged the two projects and created the Council of Europe. Today, there are 46 of them. The headquarters of this political institution was established in Strasbourg.

In practice, the Council of Europe was conceived as the civilian component of NATO. Strasbourg was chosen as its headquarters because it is, culturally, a Franco-German city.

Independently of the Council of Europe, another project, this time an economic one, was born with the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which became the European Economic Community and today, the European Union. Naturally, the seat of the European Parliament was also located in Strasbourg, which housed the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. However, given the rivalries between member states, various institutions of this economic union were located in Brussels and Luxembourg (the Parliament’s General Secretariat is located in the Robert Schumann building). MEPs came to Strasbourg for one week a month and then returned to their countries. Since they were elected not in their own name, but in the name of their party, in a single national constituency (except between 2003 and 2018, when there were eight regional constituencies), they devoted the rest of their time to their political training.

In 1993, the European Parliament acquired a chamber in Brussels, the Paul-Henri Spaak building. Six years later, it opened its own chamber in Strasbourg, the Louise Weiss building. At that time, parliamentary sessions were split between the two cities. A gigantic caravan of trucks moved all the parliamentarians’ offices twice a month. Now with a private office in Brussels, the European parliamentarians were invited to reside there and only travel to Strasbourg for sessions held there. They returned to their countries only to meet their constituents and for party meetings.—

The administration of the European Economic Community, which is primarily based in Brussels, intended both to distance itself from the Council of Europe and to move closer to the European Parliament. It therefore did everything it could to ensure that the latter stopped its back-and-forth operations and sat permanently in Brussels. This was also the wish of NATO, whose main offices were also in Brussels (or more precisely, in Mons). NATO issued the standards that the Commission proposed to the Parliament, which it approved. However, over time, the Parliament played an increasingly independent role, and NATO needed to constantly monitor it to ensure that none of its standards were overruled.

This was when the dispute began: the French refused to leave Strasbourg so as not to fall too visibly under the influence of the Anglo-Saxons. The Presidency of the Parliament therefore demanded that, from now on, elected representatives devote themselves exclusively to their activities in Brussels and no longer concern themselves with their parties in their countries.

Since then, all French political parties committed to their country’s independence—not just the National Rally—have been at odds with the presidency of the European Parliament. The court that convicted Marine Le Pen therefore chose the EP presidency’s theory, while the National Rally insisted that not a single cent of public money had been misappropriated and on having acted like many other political parties.

During her trial, Marine Le Pen chose to defend herself by arguing that she had no choice, that she was forced to choose the old concept of the work of MEPs over the new one, because her colleagues refused to allow her to be a full-fledged MEP (the "cordon sanitaire" policy). Since she had no place in Brussels, she chose to do so in her own country.

"This system of defense constitutes, according to the court, a theoretical construct that disregards
the rules of the European Parliament, the laws of the Republic, and the court decisions
rendered, in particular, during the current judicial investigation, by focusing only on
its own principles," the magistrates wrote.

It is important to understand that there are no rules for the European Parliament; the only reference text is the Consolidated Treaty of the EU, which still sets the seat of the European Parliament in Strasbourg and not in Brussels.—

It is important to understand that the only reference text, the Consolidated Treaty of the EU, still sets the seat of the European Parliament in Strasbourg and not in Brussels. The position of the French MEPs is therefore the only one consistent with the texts. On the merits, the judges did not rule in law, and, regarding the presidential favorite, they could not take interim measures because Marine Le Pen is no longer an MEP and therefore cannot "repeat the offense," according to their interpretation of the facts.

By convicting Marine Le Pen, the court not only deprived her of her right to run for president, it also deprived French elected officials of the right to challenge Parliament’s subjugation to NATO.

Thierry Meyssan
Translation
Roger Lagassé

https://www.voltairenet.org/article222044.html

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

Thursday, April 10, 2025

BY Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher

Although European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen should be in prison for the Pfizergate scandal, not to mention inciting war crimes in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, nothing will come of it as Brussels is evidently corrupt. However, following the verdict handed down to right-wing French National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen, the question arises as to why Ursula von der Leyen has not been indicted for the Pfizergate scandal, which is worth several billion euros.

Le Pen has been sentenced to four years in prison, fined 100,000 euros, and banned from running in the 2027 presidential election. She was convicted of corruption, having allegedly embezzled 2.9 million euros from European Parliament funds. Nonetheless, no one cares whether Marine Le Pen will actually be in prison or not. What matters is that she is banned from political activity and that a coup is carried out against the National Assembly at a time when the ruling paradigm is in crisis.

The case against the former French presidential candidate is not the first instance of a political process canceling unsuitable politicians in the EU, nor is it a precedent, as seen in the ban on Călin Georgescu’s candidacy, where it is clear that the European Commission undermined democracy in Romania.

It is also recalled that in 1999 and 2000, when the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party won 27 percent of the vote in the elections, its then-leader, Jörg Haider, was supposed to be the prime minister. However, Brussels completely isolated Austria, and it ended with Haider giving up, even resigning from the party leadership, and eight years later, he died in a suspicious car accident.

Therefore, the ban on political activity by politicians unsuitable for Brussels is not a surprise, as the EU has never been distinguished by its democratic character, which is why it has often been advertised as “the greatest peace project.” The EU has long had a European Commission composed of unelected bureaucrats, which is why Ursula von der Leyen, as an unelected politician from Germany, has often been perceived as acting like the de facto leader of Europe, or one of two, alongside French President Emmanuel Macron.

EU elites support all authoritarians on the continent that suit their interests, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Moldovan President Maia Sandu, and even on Europe’s periphery, such as Syria’s self-designated president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, regardless of the fact that he committed genocide against Alawites and Christians last month.

Corruption is also an integral part of EU structures. It would not be so significant if it were not accompanied by political action. This is exemplified by the fact that liberal Ursula von der Leyen escapes prosecution for Pfizergate, while right-wing Marine Le Pen is imprisoned.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, von der Leyen made a deal with Albert Bourla, the CEO of US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, to purchase 1.8 billion doses of untested COVID-19 vaccines, valued at approximately $37.6 billion. Von der Leyen negotiated this deal through a series of text messages that she eventually deleted — supposedly by mistake — along with those she exchanged with her husband, Heiko, a medical director at a biotech company with ties to Pfizer. As a result, von der Leyen was accused of corruption and “abuse of power.” 

Even before becoming European Commission president, at the end of her term as Germany’s Defense Minister (2013-2019), von der Leyen became the target of an investigation by the Federal Audit Office for continually awarding lucrative contracts to external consulting firms. In its 2018 report, the Federal Audit Office questioned the awarding procedures of some of these contracts, worth millions of euros, which appeared to have been made without proper cost assessment or a proper tendering process.

Although this may seem like incompetence at first, the American consulting firm McKinsey, for example, attracted attention when its Berlin office hired the daughter of von der Leyen. The firm eventually won contracts worth millions of euros.

While von der Leyen is protected from prosecution by German and European Union authorities, Le Pen is being prosecuted because she does not conform to the liberal values of Brussels and is described as far-right.

US President Donald Trump even demanded on April 4 for Le Pen to be freed and allowed to run for office, calling her ban a “witch hunt.”

On Truth Social, he described the court case as “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.”

Trump added that it is “all so bad for France and the Great French People”, before ending his post with “FREE MARINE LE PEN!”

In this way, while von der Leyen is protected, Le Pen is being prosecuted on allegations stemming from her time in the European Parliament that are not yet fully substantiated, all because she threatens the rule of Macron, a loyal servant of Europe’s elites.

infobrics.org

https://www.theinteldrop.org/2025/04/10/marine-le-pen-on-trial-while-corrupt-ursula-von-der-leyen-protected/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

IN THIS ARTICLE, IT SEEMS THAT THE CHARLIE HEBDO EDITOR IN CHIEF COVERTLY SORT OF ARGUES THAT DEMOCRACY DOES NOT NEED PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATIVES... IN THE PROCESS, HE BLASTS THE RIGHT AND THE LEFT BUT LEAVE THE "CENTRISTS" ALONE — THESE MACRONITES, WHO ARE NEO-NAZIS, RUSSOPHOBIC AND WARMONGERS, AND WHO GOT RID OF LE PEN, BECAUSE...

By GÉRARD BIARD — CHARLIE HEBDO

Democracy is me!

Down with the oligarchs, except me! Marine Le Pen's five-year ineligibility sentence in the case of the National Front parliamentary assistants in the European Parliament highlights the hypocrisy and contradictions of these political leaders who endlessly rail against "the caste" in the name of the interests of the "people," of course. They condemn a supposed "elite" that allegedly protects itself in an antidemocratic closed-door environment, yet claim the privilege of being part of it and above the law. They denounce a so-called "system," but for the sole reason that they feel excluded from it. This explains why, as soon as they come to power, their first concern is precisely to establish, for their own personal use, this famous "system" designed to protect them from any legal hassle. They rage against magistrates not because they are "under their orders," but because they are not under their control.

Because if anyone in this story is instrumentalizing justice and would like it to be much more accommodating to the political world, it's the leaders of the National Rally and those who agree with them. Should we be surprised to find among these supporters, alongside the cream of the far-right international — Orbán, Trump, Putin, Meloni, Bolsonaro, they're all there — and their loyal lapdogs from our own backyard — Ciotti, Praud, Zemmour— a left-wing party and its leader? "We acknowledge this court decision, even if we refuse in principle that appeal should be impossible for any litigant," LFI stated in a press release.

This is false, since Marine Le Pen is not deprived of recourse: she can appeal, and she has, moreover, promptly exercised this right [THIS IS FALSE: LE PEN CANNOT APPEAL HER 5 YEAR "POLITICAL" BAN]. Nevertheless, Mélenchon hammered home the point: "The decision to dismiss an elected official should be up to the people. "The radical left alongside the far right to attack the "red judges" - that's a strange combination...

Having their cake and eat it too
Certainly, Jean-Luc Mélenchon has very personal reasons to regret Marine Le Pen's ineligibility, which disrupts his plans for a dream duel in 2027, a duel he fantasizes he's already won. Moreover, just like Bayrou, who declared himself "troubled" by the verdict, he also has some issues with the justice system. We remember his thunderous – and contemptuous – "The Republic is me!", spit furiously in the face of a police officer during a search of his offices in 2018, as part of the investigation into his presidential campaign finances.

But precisely, this outburst of rage yesterday echoes his current challenge to judicial independence. This is part of this authoritarian and exclusive vision of the exercise of power, which would have it that once the election is won—and if it is lost, it has been "stolen" from us—we can do whatever we want, because the "people" have spoken once and for all. This deliberately forgets that democracy is not just about the result of an election—there are plenty of examples of dictatorships where people vote. Democracy is also about institutions and their representatives, the separation of powers, the free exercise of checks and balances, etc.
Above all, democracy is not the work of a self-proclaimed prince. Yet this is precisely what the RN and LFI are unashamedly demanding: not only should absolute immunity for elected officials be reinstated, but the simple act of declaring oneself a candidate should also be sufficient to protect oneself from prosecution. If such a principle were to become law, it's to be feared that the list of candidates would quickly reach infinity... And they don't want a noble quarter, while we're at it?

GÉRARD BIARD
Editor-in-Chief [CH]
Last published article: Democracy is me!

MACRON IS THE EPITOMY OF "DEMOCRACY IS ME..."... BIARD CONVENIENTLY "FORGOT" THIS...

(link to CH would reveal my sources — GL)

TRANSLATION BY JULES LETAMBOUR....

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.