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A Paris appeals court handed France’s far-right chief Marine Le Pen one year of house arrest over a fake jobs scam in the European parliament on Tuesday, casting doubt on whether she will run for president next April.
The appeals court handed the three-time presidential candidate a 45-month ban from office, 30 months of which were suspended.
The other 15 months were expected to be backdated from the initial verdict by a lower court in March last year and therefore to have expired, meaning she could in theory be a candidate.
But the court also gave her a three-year detention, two of which were suspended, meaning she must serve one year under house arrest wearing an electronic ankle tag.
The three-time presidential candidate has said she would not compete to replace centrist President Emmanuel Macron if she was under house arrest and could not campaign properly.
“When you’re a presidential candidate, you need to be completely free to move around,” she said last week in a televised interview.
“I can’t depend on a magistrate to allow me to go to a rally.”
Le Pen is expected to outline her intentions in an evening television interview later on Tuesday.
‘Witch hunt’
The first trial last year found Le Pen, along with 24 former European lawmakers, assistants and accountants, as well as the anti-immigration party itself, guilty of operating a system from 2004-2016 to use European Parliament funds to employ RN staff in France.
The court sentenced Le Pen to a five-year ban from public office and four years in prison, with two suspended.
Le Pen claimed her party was the victim of a “witch hunt” and some supporters sent the judges death threats. Le Pen, the party and 10 others appealed.
During the appeal trial, she denied that the RN had a system to embezzle European Parliament funds and has said her party acted in “complete good faith.”
But prosecutors alleged she “professionalised” a way to divert EU funds first introduced haphazardly by her late father, party co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, after she took over its leadership from him in 2011.
Recent opinion polls have largely suggested the far right will lead in the first round of next year’s vote, but are divided on the outcome of the second round.
Opinion polls
Many have shown slightly better results for National Rally president Jordan Bardella than his colleague Le Pen, but their adversaries have inferred the veteran politician would be a fiercer opponent.
“This woman is very intelligent, she’s not here by chance. And if she does also run for a fourth time, she won’t be an opponent we can sneer at,” hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon has said.
An opinion poll in May suggested Le Pen could win the runoffs next year if she is allowed to compete.
The Harris Interactive Toluna survey of more than 1,700 registered voters projected her winning, against Melenchon as well as centrist former prime ministers Gabriel Attal and Edouard Philippe.
Other polls have, however, suggested Philippe, who is also courting right-wing voters, could win a runoff against the far right.
Additional sources • AP, AFP
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