Summary
A French court found far-right leader Marine Le Pen guilty of embezzling over €3 million in EU funds, potentially ending her 2027 presidential bid.
The judge ruled Le Pen and 24 others misused European Parliament funds between 2004 and 2016 to pay National Rally party staff, calling it a deliberate scheme, not an error.
Prosecutors had sought five years’ prison and a public office ban. Even with an appeal, a provisional execution could bar her candidacy.
Let’s hope the French justice system is more competent than the US one.
Ask sarkozy
Pour quai?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Sarkozy_corruption_trial
And there is another trial going on. So the French justice system is sound.
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“sound” is a big word, for a justice system that perpetuates state violence and mistreats immigrants and disabled people.
But yes, the french system is more successful at holding politicians accountable than the US.
You’re moving goal posts. Context is politician as per the top comment.
That’s not moving goalposts. Your original comment was stating the system was sound because the politician was convicted. The person you are replying to was refuting that based on other failures of the french court system.
If you had instead posited “the french justice system is sound in this regard” referencing political conviction solely, then you might have ground for them ignoring the argument.
Good point. Original Commenter (OC) is claiming a specificity after the fact when initially they were claiming a generality.
As a reader though, OC’s meaning came across in my first reading. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“sound” is a big word, for a justice system that perpetuates state violence and mistreats immigrants.
The justice system doesn’t, the police does
I kinda disagree here. Ofc the police is on the front line, but the judges protect policemen and policewomen from being convicted or too harshly punished.
More generally, it is judges who decide to send people to prison, to inflict economic and social punishments on people deviating from the state, to send refugees back to suffering or death they tried to escape from. I saw trials in France where the judges considered the fact that a militant had anarchist books in his library as aggravating circumstance. I studied law for 3 years and made internship in tribunals, and it is not a misconception to say that the judiciary system is protecting and perpetrating state violence, though it’s less bloody than what the cops can do.
Pourquoi?
Merci!
Baguette!
Wait, y’all can just convict a right-wing political figure and like, get rid of them? Forever?
We gotta check our math, I think we did something wrong over here.
Yeah. It was reconstruction where we never held the south to account for their treasonous actions.
Lol of course not. She’ll be right back in five years. And people will vote for her again.
I heard that Trump jumped up and down and threw his juice box when JD explained he couldn’t pardon her.
The French know what’s up. As per usual.
Wait, y’all can just convict a right-wing political figure and like, get rid of them? Forever?
Maybe. We’ll see if this is a real prosecution or just French Mueller Time.
I… I didn’t know you could do that.
Damn, that’s good. Thanks!
Ohh edgy
“could” end it.
Are we cooked as a species? Embezzlement is a pretty big crime. She should be going to jail and it should most definitely end her political aspirations
Classic right wing thinking means that for them, the morally righteous can do no wrong, so convictions of embezzlement don’t matter. Laws are there only to punish the undeserving, meaning everyone not in the in-group.
The liberals should be upholding the law and throw these people in jail. If fraud pays, of course the right wingers will abuse it.
Of all countries on earth to try that hierarchy bullshit.
The one that famously guillotined the hierarchy.
Same way Trump’s “political aspirations” need to be ended
This is about France and not the USA.
Nah, being convicted is for minorities and the poor.
That said, I’m not sure if she’s rich so maybe?
Are we cooked as a species?
Yes, and it’s by design.
Parents who have sold themselves out also condition their children to do the same thing.
The people who are taken advantage of the most are the ones who never realize it.
4 years. Let’s see how it plays out.
What? Another ‘conservative’ who is a criminal? Shocked! Shocked I say!
She’s not your average conservative. She’s an actual fascist – linked with Orbán, Trump, Meloni, received millions from Putin, and her party was formed by and still includes numerous nazis, regardless of her rebranding efforts. This goes both for the founding members and the current recruits.
Maybe not an average conservative in France, but pretty spot-on for a conservative in the U.S.
Because what the US call conservative is what the EU calls far-right. EU conservatives, or traditional right, are similar to your average Democrat.
The original conservatives were in De Gaulle’s party, which was ferociously anti-nazi.
Although, naturally, as a conservative party they’re now talking about immigration, restricting liberties and the like…
Still a far cry from what Le Pen is up to.
And Meloni, please gals and guys, never forget Meloni. I know she looks like an ugly Chihuahua, but she bites much more than she barks.
You’re right… I fixed it.
Meloni, one L.
Good, she’s an awful person.
What? I thought the fascists were decent, law abiding people?
Wish our justice system actually did it’s job here…
“Embezzlement,” how quaint!
Embezzlement? You mean Tuesday?
No, this is Monday, Emoluments Day.
If she’s banned from running it will be the first instance of a western liberal country reacting appropriately to the resurgence of fascism. Good on France.
The appropriate reaction would be to ban them for being fucking fascists, not for some incidental crime they happened to commit.
Well, she still committed financial fraud. It’s more the judiciary doing its job. Sarkozy was also convicted after his presidency.
Yeah, if only other Western countries barred politicians from running or holding office if they’ve been convicted of a crime…
Instead, the US bars people from voting!
I’m worried/curious if macron would try to pardon her or find another way to allow her to stay in after he ran to them for help after the last election
Nah, not the first.
So many good news rolling in today
Oooo I love Fricko
good news for once
Fantastic news even!
CELEBRATION TIME COME ON
The worst thing in this statement is “could” - “could end her career”.
A system that doesn’t automatically provide real consequences and makes an example of the criminal is a corrupt system in itself. There shouldn’t even be a ‘could’ in a so-called ‘fair and free system’.
And this isn’t just France, by far. Cheers from the Banana Republic known as Portugal, quite the paradise for corrupt politicians.
Mate, I’m Portuguese, living in Portugal right now and let me tell you that whilst I agree with you that Portugal is a pretty corrupt place, it’s far better now that it used to be back before 2009 when the first government minister ever was convicted and imprisioned for corruption.
(20 years ago nobody would have even found out that our last Prime Minister’s family paid over €700k for real estate using money he had not declared to the transparency comission as having earned - not least because there was no such things as transparency legislation - much less the government falling because of it)
Outside the countries were Corruption is such a widespread and everyday thing that it can’t be denied (so, the kind of place were it’s normal to pay the police not to give you a fine for a traffic infraction or are expected to pay somebody at the city hall if you want to ever be issued a permit for something), the most corrupt places are places like the US and UK (the latter of which were I lived for over a decade) where the system is designed so that they won’t even investigate, much less prosecute and convict anybody who is “important” for Corruption and if any such people are publicly accused of Corruption the Justice System comes down hard on the accusers for Libel or even Harassment.
There is this interesting paradox in the perception of corruption (and hence in things like the Corruption Perception Index) that when the Justice System starts going after high level politicians for corruption, people think Corruption is going up (because it gets so much coverage in the news), when in fact Corruption is going down because some crooks are getting arrested and the rest get scared (not least because when high level types get jailed, the highest level politicians who can get millions with corrupt practices that affect an entire country, stop thinking that they have de facto immunity)
Meanwhile, in the countries with purposefully designed to be innefective “anti”-corruption systems (the UK being a perfect example, with the entire responsability for fighting corruption AND fraud, from investigation to prosecution in the entire country, being the responsability of a single entity in the Justice System - the Serious Fraud Office - who have less budget than a small city hall) alongside nasty “honor/image defending” legislation to fend off any accusations of corruption - so only those convicted for Corruption can be publicly accused of being corrupt and the system is setup so that nobody but the small fry ever gets convicted for Corruption - are the one’s with the most “strange” pieces of legislation and ministerial orders that clearly help certain sectors and even specific companies and really high rates of politicians ending up multi-millionaires via things like work-one-day-a-month very highly paid non-executive board memberships in private companies and/or getting hundreds or thousands per-speech in the speech circuit, and yet people generally think the country is very clean because you literally never see any high level politician end up in the news for Corruption.
In america we learned that laws don’t apply if everyone in power agrees to not apply them. The french are lucky enough to know how to force their government to comply, let’s just hope they ensure the laws are carried out and le pen is removed from politics permanently. They have a front row seat to see what happens when you let the law apply itself. The french government would be wise to heed the warning.
That’s the thing: laws that only in practice apply to the riff-raff can stop things like the copper demanding a bribe for not to fining somebody for speeding or the hygene inspector wanting something-something not to close down a restaurant - i.e. the kind of everyday widespread corruption that everybody sooner or later comes in contact with in some countries in Africa and South America - but does nothing to stop the really big, broadest impact corruption that affects the whole country sometimes holding it back or even dragging it down for generations, like putting certain clauses in Environmental legislation to allow highly destructive activities by certain companies, making sure certain markets are monopolies or tight cartels, selling state assets (such as during privatisations) at “friendly prices” to the “right people”, or making sure multimillionaire or even billionaire military procurement contracts go to certain companies.
This shit is often far too subtle for most people to spot it or fully understand its impact but can have big effects in the lives of just about everybody in a country and then people for example just go around feeling that their money doesn’t seem to go as far as before not putting two and two together to figure out they’re dieing the death of a thousand cuts as monopolies and cartels which should never have existed without corrupt legislation bleed them out, are dying younger because of avoidable air polution or exploitative private healthcare systems all possible thanks to legislation designed together by crooked politicians and lobbyists, feel their quality of life is much less than before as most public spaces have been made sold to private interest, and so on.
What’s happening in France (and has been happening for a while - both Sarkozy and the guy before him ended up convicted for their crimes) is actually a very good thing and needs to carry on happening, with as you say equal treatment for all and no velvet glove treatment for “VIP” types.
This shit is often far too subtle for most people to spot it or fully understand its impact but can have big effects in the lives of just about everybody in a country and then people for example just go around feeling that their money doesn’t seem to go as far as before not putting two and two together to figure out they’re dieing the death of a thousand cuts as monopolies and cartels which should never have existed without corrupt legislation bleed them out, are dying younger because of avoidable air polution or exploitative private healthcare systems all possible thanks to legislation designed together by crooked politicians and lobbyists, feel their quality of life is much less than before as most public spaces have been made sold to private interest, and so on.
This hits so hard. Honestly your entire thread is fantastic, I’d say you should package this up into an essay and see if you can’t get it published in some op-ed sections.
More people need to understand the difference between big C corruption and small scale corruption and how the former affords the latter legitimacy. In america we are at the crossroads of institutional corruption finally becoming so blatant that the smaller structures will be able to follow suit without fear of stigma. The big guy gets his palms greased; it’s common sense that the little guy should get his too.
Therein lies the “slippery slope” that opens the floodgates to beat cops shaking someone down in a traffic stop for lunch money. It doesn’t come from the bottom up but from the top down. The most powerful officials will have the most leeway to embezzle and defraud and shake down what or whomever they see fit. Those below them are free to find their own means to enrich themselves from their position of authority, and so it goes all the way down to the lowest enforcer of this state of affairs. As long as they don’t disturb the affairs of their superiors, they are free to wheel and deal as they wish.
Once it has reached the general population and begins affecting their daily lives it is already too late. The traffic stop on your work commute is now a natural occurrence and you begin to carry a purse just to ensure safe passage, because you can’t simply report this to the precinct.
I fear we are not too far from reaching this point. A few years may be all we have left to prevent the system being permanently, irreparably damaged.
We had our opportunity to let the power structure play out and it failed to hold the most powerful in the country accountable for any of their crimes. What’s happening in France gives hope that the rest of the world will take this threat seriously and begin strengthening their countries against these threats. America has already proven itself incapable of enforcing the law. I’m not sure how we go about amending that from within.
I’d need to do more study on Portugal to understand how you managed to overturn such a corrupt system in modern times but I hope your message can reach more people and open enough minds to bring us out of this descent into kleptocracy.
The first step, I’d imagine, is making everyone aware. My hope is that it doesn’t take all 300 million people in America personally witnessing the corruption first hand to create a popular uprising for change.
Even in cases like this justice must not just be done, but be seen to be done. It seems her guilt has been established, which is good; her sentencing comes next. It seem unlikely that there are any mitigating circumstances to reduce the punishment, but that judgement must be seen to be fair. The French citizenry are not renouned for their forebearance in the face of injustice, so I would be tempted to trust their system for now.
ETA: In fact, it seems like the punishment has already been decreed: five years ineligibility to run for office, four years in prison (two suspended), and a fine. That puts her out of tbe running for president, and likely tarnishes her enough to keep her down even after 2030.
I wonder if she’ll write a book about her struggle
Ma Lutte?
Sounds like a medieval guitar.
