Marine Le Pen criticized a court decision which prohibits him from presenting herself to his public service as a “political decision” and says that she will appeal.
The French far -right French politician was found guilty on Monday of the EU’s embezzlement and was prohibited from presenting himself to the elections for five years, with an immediate effect.
The decision means that, unless she can overthrow her sentence before the 2027 presidential election, Le Pen will probably not be able to stand.
“I’m not going to be eliminated like that,” Le Pen said at the French television station TF1. She will call on the verdict “as soon as possible”, she said, with “whatever the legal avenues that I can”.
Le Pen was sentenced to a sentence of four years in prison, two of which will be suspended. The other two can be spent with an electronic label rather than detention.
She also received a fine of € 100,000 (£ 82,635).
“Millions of French people are indignant,” she said, saying that the judges have “implemented measures reserved for authoritarian regimes”.
Le Pen added that it was “scandalized, indignant, but this indignation, this feeling of injustice, is an additional push in combat that I fight for them (the voters)”.
But the call process can take a long time.
The appeal trial would probably not occur for another year, and a verdict would come several months after that.
Preparing a presidential campaign in these circumstances could be complicated.
The 2027 election would have been his fourth attempt, and the one that offers the greatest chance of victory.
Jordan Bardella, the 29 -year -old president of the National Rally (RN), said on Monday that Le Pen’s conviction was a “democratic scandal”.
Bardella also called for a “popular and peaceful mobilization”.
He then published a link to an online petition which indicates a “dictatorship of the judges … wanted to prevent the French from expressing themselves”.
“Let’s show those who want to bypass democracy that the will of the people is stronger!” The petition is read
At the start of reading the verdict, the judge, Bénédicte de Perthuis, said that Le Pen had been at the “heart of the system” which saw the diversion of 2.9 million euros in European funds.
Two dozen RN figures were also found guilty and the party was ordered to pay a fine of 2 million euros, with half of the amount suspended.
Le Pen has been accused, as well as more than 20 other personalities from the senior party, of hiring assistants who worked on his business as a nurses rather than for the European Parliament that paid them.
During the trial last year, Le Pen denied having committed “the slightest irregularity”.
Before the sentence was pronounced on Monday, she burst out of the court, alongside other accused and headed for the siege of Paris of the RN, where the party held a “crisis meeting”.
On weekends, Le Pen had declared to the media that even if it was “not nervous”, the judges had “the power of life or death on the (political) movement”.
Shortly before his conviction, Le Pen received messages of support from the Kremlin, as well as European allies such as Viktor Orban in Hungary and the Matteo Salvini of Italy.
But some Le Pen opponents also declared that they disapprove of the judge’s decision.
The media indicated that the Prime Minister Centrist François Bayrou was “disturbed” by the decision against Marine Le Pen, although he does not intend to make a public declaration on the issue.
“The choice to reject an elected official should only belong to the people,” said Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the far left of France Unbowed (LFI).
And Laurent Wauquie, right -wing Republicans, said that the decision “would weigh very heavily on the functioning of our democracy”.
“It is undoubtedly not the route that should have been taken.”
Reading the verdict, which started shortly after 10:00 am (9:00 am BST), took almost three hours.