French court finds far-right leader Marine Le Pen guilty of embezzlement

Let us remind you that Marine Le Pen was accused with 24 members of the party of embezzlement of funds of the European Parliament.

Le Pen and 24 other officials from her National Rally party are accused of using money intended for European Union parliamentary assistants to pay staff who worked for the party between 2004 and 2016, which is against the rules of this 27-member bloc, writes France24.

Le Pen was banned from running for public office for five years, and was sentenced to four years in prison.

Le Pen, who left the courtroom before the verdict was read out, was found guilty of embezzlement.

According to the court's decision, two of the four years of the prison sentence are suspended, but according to the media, it is not clear whether she will serve the prison sentence at all.

As the French BFM TV writes, the verdict automatically leads to a ban on Marine Le Pen running in the presidential elections in 2027.

The prosecutors demanded that the ban on running for office begin immediately.

The president of the court specified that the amount of fraud related to Marine Le Pen amounts to 474,000 euros, for the positions of four parliamentary assistants.

Let's recall that twelve assistants of European deputies who were also on trial were found guilty of concealing embezzlement, "Le Figaro" reports. They will be sentenced individually.

The court estimated that the value of the total damage caused was 2.9 million euros, since "people who actually worked for the party were paid with the funds of the European Parliament."

Le Pen, who did not speak to reporters after arriving in court, accused prosecutors of seeking her "political death," claiming it was a conspiracy to keep the party she leads from coming to power.

The defendants also say that the money was used legitimately and that the accusations define what the parliamentary assistant does too narrowly.