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Europe|‘I Am Disgusted’: Le Pen Voters Voice Outrage Over Her Conviction
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/01/world/europe/le-pen-voters-outrage-conviction.html
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When the verdict from a Paris criminal court flashed across screens in Hénin-Beaumont, many customers in the Café de la Paix received it with the outrage and disappointment Marine Le Pen predicted.
The far-right political leader was found guilty embezzlement, sentenced to four years in prison — two years suspended, two in a form of house arrest — and fined more than $100,000.
But most stinging was the decision barring her from running for public office for five years, rendering her ineligible to run in France’s 2027 presidential election.
For people here, Ms. Le Pen is not just the leader of the National Rally, and three-time presidential candidate. She is their local lawmaker in the lower house of Parliament.
“I am disgusted,” said Jean-Marc Sergheraert, 70, a retired charity manager, craning up at a big television screen. There, Ms. Le Pen was denouncing the decision as politically motivated and unjust because, she said, her sentence would be enforced even as she appealed it, which is often not the case in France.
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