United States officials asked a French magistrate to intervene over Marine Le Pen's ban on holding office as part of the far-right leader's conviction for embezzlement last year, according to the general secretary of France's human rights commission.
Magali Lafourcade, the general secretary of France's National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH), an independent advisory body, confirmed on Wednesday that she brought a conversation with two US advisors to the attention of the French foreign ministry.
She feared they were seeking to influence French public debate by looking for ways to show that Marine Le Pen’s trial was political.
RN leader Le Pen battles for political future after embezzlement conviction
Lafourcade met with Samuel D Samson and Christopher J Anderson last May in Paris – advisers for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, part of the US Department of State.
She said the pair were convinced that Le Pen had been “treated unfairly” and was a victim of a “political conviction”.
This view echoed that of US conservatives who rallied around Le Pen after her conviction for embezzling European Union funds.
US President Donald Trump called the conviction and Le Pen's subsequent ban from holding public office a witch hunt.
‘Free Le Pen’: US conservatives rally behind French far-right leader
The two US officials “were convinced that this was a political trial that aimed to keep [Le Pen] away from the presidential race or to ostracise her for purely political reasons,” Lafoucrade said, adding that they were seeking elements to back up the theory.
Lafourcade said she was uncomfortable with the conversation, and reported the meeting to the French Foreign Ministry, fearing a potential “manipulation of the public debate in France”.
This is the second time that French magistrates have issued a warning over influence from the US on the case.
At the start of January, the president of the Paris tribunal, Peimane Ghaleh-Marzban, said that magistrates who were on the case had received threats of sanctions from the US.
(with AFP)
