Court recognizes Lepen as guilty of wasting EU funds / day

The court laid down Lepen’s ban on the French presidential election, with the entry into force of the prohibition immediately.

Lepena and 24 other officials were accused of establishing a system of misappropriation of EU money in 2004-2016 to hire employees in France. Such the use of funds does not comply with EU law. Lepena and other accused deny their guilt in the charges.

Lepen has described the denial of the ban in the upcoming French presidential elections as « political death sentence ». The Constitutional Council on Friday decided in a separate case that the immediate entry into force of the penalty without waiting for the appeals was in line with the State Basic Law.

56 -year -old Lepena lost to Emmanuel Macron in 2017 and 2022 in the French presidential election, but in recent years, the number of supporters of her party has grown and it is assumed that she could win.

In a lawsuit that continued at nine weeks last year, Lepene insisted that he had not done anything illegal. In her opinion, the sole purpose of the litigation is to deny her election.

The lawsuit found that part of the EU funds were also paid for the lepen’s bodyguard, who used to be a bodyguard for her father, Jean -Marie Lepen, who for many years was the leader of the French extreme right. Lepena also paid his private assistant from EU funds.

The prosecutor’s office asked the court to admit Lepen to guilty, sentenced her to a two -year prison sentence and a five -year ban on the election.

The prosecutor’s office asked to be guilty of all the other accused, demanding different penalties for them, for example, up to one year in prison, and a two million euros of penalty for the party.