PARIS — The European Court of Human Rights shot down an emergency request by Marine Le Pen to intervene in her legal troubles less than 48 hours after the French far-right leader submitted it.
“The Court rejects the request for interim measures submitted by Ms. Le Pen seeking suspension of the provisional enforcement of the ineligibility sentence imposed on her,” the ECHR wrote in a statement Wednesday.
In March, Le Pen was found guilty of embezzling funds from the European Parliament and banned from running for public office for five years. The judgement effectively knocks her out of the next presidential election set for 2027 unless an appeals court rules in her favor next summer. Le Pen continues to deny any wrongdoing.
On Tuesday she asked the ECHR for urgent help and to demand that France lift her election ban, arguing the ruling could cause “serious and irreparable harm to her rights and those of voters that would result from her inability to stand in the upcoming elections.”
The ECHR found that “at this stage of the proceedings, the existence of a real risk of irreparable harm to a right protected by the Convention or its Protocols has not been established.”
But while the Strasbourg-based court did not deem Le Pen’s request urgent, the complaint will still be examined on its merits, with a decision to follow at a later date.
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