President Donald Trump expressed support for former French presidential front-runner and National Rally leader Marine Le Pen after she was banned from running in elections and handed a prison sentence.
Trump posted on Truth Social Thursday night saying Le Pen was the victim of a “witch hunt” and that the prominent right-wing figure was a victim of the same persecution that Trump experienced during his career. Le Pen received a four-year prison sentence and a $350,000 fine Monday, which she will serve with a tracker outside of traditional detainment, for misusing $4.8 million in EU funding that was earmarked for assistants in the European Parliament.
“The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech, and censor their Political Opponent, this time going so far as to put that Opponent in prison,” Trump said in his post. “I don’t know Marine Le Pen, but do appreciate how hard she worked for so many years. She suffered losses, but kept on going, and now, just before what would be a Big Victory, they get her on a minor charge that she probably knew nothing about – Sounds like a “bookkeeping” error to me. It is all so bad for France, and the Great French People, no matter what side they are on. FREE MARINE LE PEN!”
Jordan Bardella, president of National Rally and the presumptive candidate for the presidency, condemned the ruling on Monday.
“Today, it is not only Marine Le Pen who is being unjustly condemned: it is French democracy that is being executed,” Bardella said on X Monday.
Le Pen was a frontrunner in the upcoming 2027 presidential elections in France, holding a commanding lead of 37% of the prospective vote, a ten point increase to her first round score in 2022, according to Le Journal du Dimanche.
In the 2024 National Assembly elections, Le Pen’s National Rally won over one-third of the vote in the first round, but was ultimately defeated by the left-wing coalition, New Popular Front, in the second round. Le Pen also mounted failed challenges for the French presidency in 2017 and 2022, losing to current President Emmanuel Macron.
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