by Jeff Mason and Kanishka Singh
US President Donald Trump said Monday that right-wing President Marine Le Penn and his ban on him in the 2027 presidential election “is a great satisfaction.
A French court on Monday prevented Lopez from running for the 2027 presidential election after being convicted of corruption.
“It’s a great thing,” he told reporters at the White House on Monday evening.
Rights advocates have compared their anti-immigrant views for years between Lipen and Trump and accused them against minorities.
The French court’s decision was a retreat for Le Pen, 56. The leader of the National Rali Party (RN) is one of the most prominent true figures in Europe and the leading polls in the 2027 French competition.
“I know everything about it, and many people thought he wouldn’t be punished for anything,” Trump said.
“But for five years he was banned from running, and he is the main candidate. That’s like this country, it’s very similar to the country,” Trump said in a clear reference to the legal cases that Trump himself faced before taking office.
Trump was accused of covering silent money with a porn star, of his efforts to cancel the 2020 election results he lost and to keep confidential documents after the end of the first round. He was punished in the case of silence. In all the cases he called a political motive, he refused to make that mistake.
Federal accusations against him were abolished after winning the 2024 elections.
The Supreme Judicial Council of the French Judicial Authority said in a statement Monday it was concerned about what it called the “virus reaction” that had raised the decision after Lupen’s allies in France and right-wing leaders away from Europe condemned.
“Health threats to target judges in charge of the case, just as the statements of political leaders about the entitlements of the prosecutor general or the punishment, especially during the negotiations, cannot be accepted in a democratic society,” he said.
Others applauded Lepen’s decision, saying the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law must be respected after the judge punished the EU for the wrong crime to benefit his party.
The five-year ban on the General Office in Lupen cannot be suspended by appeal, although it will protect its parliamentary seat until the end of the presidency. He was also sentenced to four years in prison, which was suspended for two years and had to serve at home for two years – and 100,000 euros ($108,200) were fines, but they were not requested until his appeals were tired.
(This story has been recorded to remove an external word ‘wha’ in paragraph 4.
(Report by Jeff Mason, Written by Kanishka Singh; Editing by Aurora Ellis)