Overview
- Marine Le Pen’s appeal in the parliamentary assistants case opens Tuesday in Paris and is scheduled to run until 12 February.
- Le Pen was sentenced in March in first instance to five years of ineligibility with provisional enforcement, making the sanction effective unless reversed on appeal.
- Jordan Bardella told reporters it would be profoundly worrying for democracy if justice prevented Le Pen from standing and said she will demonstrate her innocence.
- Le Pen said she will try to attend the hearings as often as possible to convince the magistrates, noting this will curtail her presence at the National Assembly.
- At the press event Le Pen sat alongside ally Éric Ciotti of the UDR, and she plans to resume municipal campaigning with a visit to Marseille on Friday to support RN candidate Franck Alissio.