European Union legislators have “overwhelmingly” voted to lift the EU parliamentary immunity of French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen for tweeting pictures of Isis violence.
Ms Le Pen, a member of the European parliament, is under investigation in France for posting three graphic images of Isis executions on Twitter in 2015, including the beheading of the United States journalist James Foley.
Responding to a request from the French judiciary, the EU MEPs in the legal affairs committee voted to lift her immunity, EU officials said. The committee’s decision will have to be backed by the whole parliament in a second vote, possibly this week.
Ms Le Pen’s immunity shields her from prosecution and lifting it would permit legal action against her. The offence being considered is “publishing violent images,” which under certain circumstances can carry a penalty of three years in prison and a fine of €75,000 (£64,000).
Le Pen
I don’t make a lot of predictions here, but she just may be the next President of France.
Les Déplorables
Marine Le Pen gained ground on her rivals for the French election as she benefits from concerns about security while other candidates trained their fire on independent front-runner Emmanuel Macron.
Monday’s daily OpinionWay poll showed that first-round support for anti-euro candidate Le Pen rose 1 percentage point to 27 percent, with Macron and Republican Francois Fillon unchanged at 20 percent each. While no surveys so far have shown Le Pen even close to a victory in May’s run-off, she’s quickly narrowing the gap to her rivals. OpinionWay showed Macron would defeat Le Pen by 58 percent to 42 percent in the second round. His advantage has halved in less than two weeks.
Likely related.
🆘‼️👮🔥 #France: Violence, riots, unrest have already reached #Paris. A matter of time until there are deads on the streets! pic.twitter.com/PAKqyg7UuT
— Onlinemagazin (@OnlineMagazin) February 19, 2017