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Breaking news: Marine Le Pen Found Guilty! Embezzler, take that, you fascist. GOOD NEWS [1]
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Date: 2025-03-31
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen found guilty of embezzlement of public funds -Le Monde
A French court on Monday, March 31, convicted far-right leader Marine Le Pen on charges of embezzlement of public funds over a fake jobs scam at the EU parliament, a ruling which could derail her 2027 presidential hopes. The judge has yet to issue a sentence.*
In the Guardian
We are getting a bit more detail on the presiding judge’s explanation for the guilty verdict, via Reuters.
The court found Le Pen, eight other people who were EU lawmakers at the time and 12 parliamentary assistants guilty of embezzling EU funds. The defendants were not accused of pocketing the money, but rather of using EU funds to the benefit of their party.
Judge Bénédicte de Perthuis ruled: “It was established that all these people were actually working for the party, that their (EU) lawmaker had not given them any tasks.”
“The investigations also showed that these were not administrative errors ... but embezzlement within the framework of a system put in place to reduce the party’s costs.”
Le Pen, who sat in the front row in court, could be seen at times shaking her head slightly from right to left, indicating “no”, while listening to the judge.
The Libération daily adds that in total court found evidence of over 40 fictitious contracts over “nearly 12 years”, amounting to “more than €4.6 million” in total.
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