Faithful protest as Le Pen's penalty upheld

Supporters of the extreme right-wing National Front (FN) visited party headquarters throughout France last night to collect pots of glue and 40,000 posters saying, "With Le Pen against injustice".

The nocturnal wallpapering was to protest at yesterday's confirmation by the Versailles appeals court of the FN leader Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen's conviction for assaulting a Socialist candidate, Mrs Annette Peulvast-Bergeal, during the 1997 legislative campaign.

The court upheld an earlier conviction, but reduced Mr Le Pen's ineligibility for public office from two years to one, and his fine from Ffr 20,000 to 5,000. It maintained a three-month suspended prison sentence.

If Mr Le Pen does not appeal within five days, he cannot head the FN list in the June 1999 European parliamentary election and must relinquish his present seat in the European Parliament, as well as his position as a regional councillor for Provence-Alpes-Cotes d'Azur.

But if he appeals, Mr Le Pen risks losing the opportunity to stand in France's next presidential election, a contest of paramount importance to him. The court would take about one year to decide, and in theory he would be eligible by the time the 2002 campaign begins. But President Chirac is said to be considering calling an early election, from which Mr Le Pen might thus be excluded.

Speaking in Strasbourg, where he was attending a session of the European Parliament, Mr Le Pen denounced yesterday's ruling as "sticky". He called it "contrary to the facts, to law, to justice" and predicted the French people would undermine it by voting massively for the FN next June.

In an interview published by Le Parisien, Mr Le Pen confirmed that his wife Jany will head the FN list if he accepts his punishment now and does not appeal. "It is out of the question that the Le Pen name be arbitrarily eliminated from the debate." FN supporters, led by Mr Le Pen's ambitious deputy, Mr Bruno Megret, have opposed the idea of a housewife with no political experience heading the party's list.

Last month, the European Parliament lifted Mr Le Pen's immunity for the third time, so that a Munich tribunal could pursue him for Holocaust negationism.

Although the Versailles court reduced Mr Le Pen's punishment, it redefined his offence from "violence in a meeting and public insult" to the more serious crime of "violence against a person in a position of public authority who is exercising their official duties".