Paris prosecutors have ordered far-right leader Marine Le Pen to be sentenced to five years in prison and suspended from political activities for five years in connection with the illegal political party funding scandal.
Nicolas Barrett called for the ban to take effect immediately after the ruling, even if her lawyers appealed and ruled that Le Pen could not run for president again in 2027.
She and more than 20 other party officials are accused of hiring assistants to work on party business rather than the European Parliament, which paid them.
Le Pen denies the charges, but told reporters the sentence was an “outrage” and accused prosecutors of trying to “ruin” her party, the National Rally (RN).
“I think what the prosecutors want is to deprive the French people of the right to vote for whoever they want,” she said after a hearing in the French capital, where she is on trial along with 24 other defendants.
Le Pen lost to Emmanual Macron 58.55% to 41.45% in the last presidential election in 2022, but the RN is the largest of the many parties in parliament.
In addition to prison terms and banishment from political office, the RN leader is also facing a fine of 300,000 euros (£249,000, $319,000).
The proposed prison sentence is “convertible”, with France’s AFP news agency reporting that Le Pen “will not necessarily go to prison”.
However, the ban on political office will take effect immediately and will not be delayed by an appeals process, as some had expected.
The prosecution requested that all 25 defendants be subject to bans.
“The law applies to everyone,” Barrett told the court.
The defendants and the party itself as a legal entity are accused of siphoning funds from the European Parliament to pay the salaries of party staff.
According to the indictment, for several years Le Pen led a scheme to “recruit” RN employees from Paris to serve as EU parliamentary aides in Brussels.
The court alleges that these RN officials rarely set foot in the EU parliament and had no role there.
Le Pen argued that parliamentary aides paid by the Brussels parliament were naturally involved in politics because they were interested in it in the first place.
RN President Jordan Bardera, who is not a defendant in the case, called the prosecutor’s request an “attack on democracy” in a post on X.
“The prosecutor’s office is not acting fairly,” he said. “Persecuting Marine Le Pen and trying to take revenge.”
European Parliament lawyer Patrick Maisonneuve said he was not surprised by the sentence sought.
“The prosecutor’s demands are consistent,” he said, according to Reuters.
The trial is scheduled to continue until November 27th.
