Ever since the news came out of France that leading Far-right political leader in France, Marine Le Pen had been convicted of a political offence, thus barring her from contesting in the upcoming presidential election in the European country, a chill has gone up the spine of many opposition politicians in Nigeria about the possibilities of tactically barring popular politicians in the run up to the 2027 presidential race since the tool of rigging many politicians take to get into office is facing persistent assault from the clamour of I-Rev electronically enable results declaration of results.

Politicians in government positions have been perceived to be allegedly finding ingenious ways to knock out opponents as it is suspected to be ongoing in the Senate between Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan who is one of the very few female lawmakers in the Nigerian Senate, who is being opposed by some masculine Senators that have succeeded in suspending her from office without pay for six months in the first instance.

She had made accusations of sexual harassment against the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.


Over the years, France had been perceived to be nervous about the rise and rise of far right leader, Marine Le Pen who many believe may be anti multiculturalist, in an increasing diverse France of today.




Foreign Policy reports that
Le Pen Sentence Takes Her Out Of The Running


Read on:
A French criminal court found far-right politician Marine Le Pen guilty of embezzlement in a decision announced on Monday, effectively preventing the current front-runner in the country’s 2027 presidential election from participating.
Le Pen and 24 other officials from the National Rally party were accused of illegally using $4.8 million in European Parliament funds earmarked for European Union parliamentary aides to instead pay party staff between 2004 and 2016. Nine European Parliament members, including Le Pen, and 12 assistants were found guilty.




Presiding judge Bénédicte de Perthuis said on Monday that Le Pen’s actions amounted to a “serious and lasting attack on the rules of democratic life in Europe, but especially in France.” Le Pen has called the allegations a “witch hunt” against Europe’s increasingly popular populist movement.
A three-judge panel sentenced Le Pen to a five-year ban on seeking public office, including in the snap parliamentary elections that President Emmanuel Macron is likely to hold before his term ends as well as the 2027 presidential election. Le Pen also faces four years in prison, with two of those years suspended and the other two to be served under house arrest, and a $108,000 fine.
Le Pen’s lawyer said she will appeal the verdict, but such a process could take years, and the far-right lawmaker will remain ineligible to run for president during that time.






There are 11 million people who voted for the movement I represent,” Le Pen told the court, referring to the party’s results in snap elections last year. “So tomorrow, potentially, millions and millions of French people would see themselves deprived of their candidate in the election.”
According to an opinion poll published on Sunday, Le Pen would receive somewhere between 34 percent and 37 percent of the vote in a presidential election if it were held now—more than 10 points ahead of her nearest rival.




The daughter of National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine Le Pen has rebranded her nationalist party as the National Rally, seeking to distance it from past accusations of xenophobia and antisemitism. Yet the party still embraces far-right and anti-immigrant ideals, and under Le Pen’s tutelage, it became the largest single party in France’s National Assembly following last summer’s snap elections.
“Today, it is not only Marine Le Pen who is being unjustly condemned: It is French democracy that is being executed,” National Rally leader Jordan Bardella posted on X on Monday. The 29-year-old protégé of Le Pen is the most likely candidate to replace her on the 2027 ballot.




Other far-right leaders around the world were quick to denounce the ruling. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban posted “Je suis Marine!” (“I am Marine!”) on social media, and Italian far-right leader Matteo Salvini wrote that this was a “declaration of war by Brussels.”
But within France, even mainstream politicians expressed uncertainty about the harsh sentence. This verdict puts “a very heavy weight on our democracy,” said French conservative lawmaker Laurent Wauquiez, a political opponent of Le Pen’s.


FP