France's Le Pen condemns death threats

31/1/2025 6:25

French far-right leader Marine

Le Pen on Thursday said those behind death threats against a

judge and prosecutors trying her in a graft trial should be

punished, in her first comments on a police investigation into

the abuse.



Reuters reported this week that police are investigating

threats against a judge and two prosecutors in the trial, which

could derail Le Pen's hopes of running in the 2027 presidential

vote where polls have her as frontrunner.



Lead prosecutors Louise Neyton and Nicolas Barret have asked

for a five-year ban from public office for Le Pen. Three judges,

led by Benedicte de Perthuis, are due to give a verdict on March

31.



Le Pen said the threats, which came in now-deleted comments

on two articles in far-right website Riposte Laique (Secular

Response), should not be trivialized.



"This serious trend, which consists of threatening to kill

anyone - police officers, judges, elected officials, artists,

etc. - with whom some feel in disagreement, is a worrying

development which, given its scale, must be the subject of

reflection by the justice system," she wrote on X.



"Prosecutions must therefore be systematically initiated and

the perpetrators convicted," added Le Pen, whose late-father's

often-inflammatory rhetoric led to convictions for inciting

racial hatred and condoning war crimes.



Gerald Darmanin, the justice minister, also weighed in - the

highest-ranking government official to do so. "Support to

magistrates facing unacceptable threats," he wrote on X.



Le Pen, her National Rally (RN) party and some two dozen

party figures are accused of diverting funds intended for

European Parliament staff. In a TV interview on Wednesday night,

Le Pen reiterated she was innocent of the charges against her.



She said she could not imagine judges would deprive the

French of choosing their presidential candidate and that barring

her from office would be an attack on democracy.



The threats around the trial have raised concerns in France

about growing risks of violence against figures of authority,

including thousands of verbal and physical attacks against

mayors, as well as a suspected attempt to ambush a prosecutor

looking into organised crime that was foiled by police.



"This is not a specific feature of this trial but a more

general and very worrying trend," Marie-Suzanne Le Queau, the

attorney general of the Paris Court of Appeal, told France Inter

radio on Wednesday. "All those who exercise authority ... are

increasingly the target of death threats and completely

uninhibited remarks."