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Politico (15 April 2025)

Mujtaba Rahman

On March 31, a political earthquake shook France: Far-right opposition politician Marine Le Pen was found guilty of embezzling €474,000 from the EU by employing four fake assistants in the European Parliament between 2009 and 2017, as well as of complicity in a wider scheme to embezzle €1.8 million in the same way. 

She was sentenced to four years in jail — two of them suspended and two to be served by wearing an electronic monitor. She was also fined €100,000 and banned from standing for public office for five years, with immediate effect.

This wasn’t a “political” trial or verdict, but Le Pen will seek to turn it into one. And she may very well succeed.

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