A French magistrate has said two Trump administration emissaries approached her seeking to lobby against an election ban on the far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
Magali Lafourcade, the secretary general of France’s human rights commission (CNCDH), an independent body that advises the government, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) she had reported the content of the meeting to the French foreign ministry immediately, fearing a potential “manipulation of the public debate in France”.
Confirming comments she made to France 5 TV, Ms Lafourcade said she had been very surprised by the tenor of her discussion with the US advisers in Paris last May, when they steered the conversation on to French judges’ sentencing of Ms Le Pen in 2025 after she was found guilty of the embezzlement of European Parliament funds.
After a nine-week trial in Paris, judges ruled last March that Ms Le Pen had been at the heart of an extensive and long-running fake jobs scam at the European Parliament, and banned her from running for public office for five years with immediate effect.
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Ms Le Pen (57) who leads the anti-immigration National Rally (RN), had been considered a lead contender for next year’s presidential election until her sentence. She also received a four-year prison term, with two years suspended and two to be served outside jail with an electronic bracelet. She was ordered to pay a €100,000 fine.
Ms Le Pen appealed alongside 10 of the 24 party members who were convicted last year. She denied wrongdoing and is appearing in court in Paris on a fresh trial as she seeks to overturn her conviction and sentence. She told the court on Wednesday that she had always acted in good faith.
[ Le Pen tells embezzlement appeal trial she had no sense of wrongdoingOpens in new window ]
Ms Lafourcade told AFP she had met Samuel D Samson and Christopher J Anderson last May. They are advisers for the US bureau of democracy, human rights and labor (DRL), which is part of the US department of state. She said they had been seeking “elements to support a theory that could have, perhaps, served to support a disinformation or manipulation of the public debate in France”.
Ms Lafourcade said she had tried to explain the French judicial process, but that the two men “were convinced it was a political trial that aimed to remove [Le Pen] from the presidential race or to place a ban on her for purely political reasons”.
She said they felt Ms Le Pen had been unfairly treated and was victim of a “political conviction”, and that they had sought elements to support that view.
Ms Lafourcade, who is not involved in the Le Pen case, said she was troubled because this was not the type of conversation that “should happen with allies”.
She said she had sensed that it could be seen as a form of interference, so immediately reported the conversation to the foreign ministry, “which is something I never do, as we are an independent institution and don’t report the exchanges we have with diplomats”.
She said the foreign ministry, which has not commented, had told her it would take her report very seriously. The US department of state has also been approached for comment.
Ms Le Pen’s sentence prompted anger among political figures on the international populist right. US president Donald Trump called it a “witch-hunt” by “European leftists”.
Ms Le Pen had attacked what she called a “tyranny of judges” who she said wanted to stop her running in a presidential race she said she could otherwise win.
The president of the Paris judicial court, Peimane Ghaleh-Marzban, said this month that any move against a French judge would “constitute an unacceptable and intolerable interference in the internal affairs of our country”.
The French government spokesperson, Maud Bregeon, said this month that there was no proof of any international interference, but that the government would remain vigilant. – Guardian
