Judges who convicted Marine Le Pen on embezzlement charges and banned the far-right politician from public office for five years have faced death threats since the sentencing earlier this week. French police have launched a new investigation into the threats as France reels from the fallout of the bombshell ruling.
Issued on: 02/04/2025 - 13:03Modified: 02/04/2025 - 13:33
French police launched a new probe after the Paris criminal court judges who sentenced far-right National Rally (RN) party leader Marine Le Pen earlier this week faced death threats, according to judicial sources.
The latest investigation came in addition to an ongoing probe, opened earlier this year, into death threats posted on the far-right Riposte Laïque website against magistrates in the trial against Le Pen’s RN party over the misappropriation of funds from the European parliament, a judicial source told AFP.
Le Pen has slammed the ruling, which includes a four-year prison sentence and a five-year ban from public office, which could bar her from running for the 2027 presidential election. In an address to the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament, on Tuesday, the far-right politician said she considered the ruling a "nuclear bomb" launched by the “system” against her.
Le Pen guilty of 'organised and systematised embezzlement'
The RN leader and frontrunner in opinion polls for the 2027 election has appealed the ruling.
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said France's judiciary is "independent” and stressed that judges and magistrates "must be protected”.
Speaking to his cabinet, Macron also asserted that “all those subject to the law have the right to appeal”, according to sources at the meeting.
Monday’s ruling has rattled French politics, sparking debates on the impartiality of the law, the politics of grievance and its consequences, which have sent ripples in far-right circles across the world. US President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk have blasted Le Pen’s sentencing, with the US billionaire accusing the “radical left” of abusing the legal system.
In France, the ruling has sparked a firestorm, including threats and insults by Le Pen’s supporters against the president of the court, Bénédicte de Perthuis, one of three trial judges in the case.
Shortly after the sentencing, Perthuis was placed under police protection after receiving death threats.
A day after Monday’s ruling, top French ministers and officials condemned the threats against the judges. Prime Minister François Bayrou on Tuesday told the National Assembly that the trial judges had his “unconditional support”.
Rémy Heitz, the public prosecutor at the court of cassation, France’s highest court, said the “highly personalised” attacks were “unacceptable”. The threats could be the subject of criminal proceedings, he added.
In separate statements on Tuesday, several unions representing French magistrates and justices condemned the attacks on judges. The Union Syndicale des Magistrats (USM) described the threats as “unworthy of a democratic state” while the left-leaning Syndicat de la Magistrature (SM) noted that “the equality of all before the law and the preservation of the rule of law are at stake”.
A national association representing more than 77,000 French lawyers said the “naming, personal questioning or threats targeting magistrates constitute a serious attack on the independence of the judiciary, a fundamental principle of the rule of law”.
Meanwhile a French appeals court on Tuesday said it would examine Le Pen's case within a timeframe that could potentially allow the far-right leader to contest the 2027 presidential election.
The Paris Court of Appeal said it would examine the appeal "within a timeframe that should allow a decision to be reached in the summer of 2026".
This could mean that the new trial would be held by early 2026, and that the decision would therefore be handed down well before the 2027 presidential election, in which Le Pen wants to run for the fourth time.
Reacting to the statement, Le Pen called the promise of the summer 2026 timeframe "very good news" which nonetheless highlighted the "turmoil created by the ruling" in the first place.
In an interview in Le Parisien newspaper the veteran Eurosceptic said she would refer the matter to the European Court of Human Rights to argue that the verdict "creates irreparable harm".
The announcement was made after Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin, speaking during a tense parliament session, expressed hope that Le Pen's appeal would be heard within the "most reasonable timeframe".
Should Le Pen lose her appeal, there is also a "plan B", a candidacy by her protege and RN party leader Jordan Bardella, a 29-year-old with a slick television and social media presence.
As Le Pen’s presidential hopes hang in the balance, Bardella waits in the wings
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