The leader of the National Rally party shared the images in 2015 shortly after Islamist terrorist attacks in Paris left 130 people dead.
Le Pen was responding to a comparison, made by a journalist, between her political party and Islamic State organisation, also known as Daesh.
Under the photos – which showed US journalist James Foley beheaded by IS, a man in an orange jump suit being run over by a tank and a Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a cage – she commented “Daesh is THIS.”
Le Pen later deleted the picture of Foley after a request from his family. She said she had been unaware of his identity.
In 2018, a judge charged her, as well as fellow far-right politician Gilbert Collard who had also tweeted the pictures, with circulating “violent messages that incite terrorism or pornography or seriously harm human dignity” that can be viewed by a minor.
Le Pen, who is herself a lawyer, says she is the victim of a political witch-hunt. She refused to undergo psychiatric tests as part of the inquiry.
'Deforming the law'
David Dassa, representing the far-right leader, said she had “no intention nor even any awareness of endangering a minor. She was responding to an attack, a provocation, by a journalist”.
He accused prosecutors of “deforming the spirit and the letter of the law…to limit Mrs Le Pen’s freedom of speech”.
In 2017, she was stripped of her parliamentary immunity so that the trial might take place, though it then had to be postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Le Pen has another legal challenge looming: she and other party officials are accused of improperly spending millions of euros of public funds while serving in the European Parliament.
Opinion polls suggest that if a presidential election were held today in France, she would face incumbent President Macron in a second-round run-off.
