French authorities on Tuesday detained a 76-year-old man over a death threat against the judge who presided over the panel that sentenced far-right leader Marine Le Pen to an election ban, prosecutors said.
“On his X account, he had posted the following: ‘What this bitch deserves,’ along with a photograph of a guillotine,” the public prosecutor’s office told AFP.
Last week Le Pen was given a partly suspended jail term, a fine of 100,000 euros, and an immediate ban on taking part in elections for five years after being convicted for a scheme under which the EU parliament paid assistants who were actually working for her party.
The bombshell judgement, which could crush the 56-year-old’s dream of winning the French presidency in 2027, stunned France’s political establishment.
The court ruled that Le Pen was at the “heart” of the system of embezzlement of public funds. A total of 24 people have been convicted, in addition to the RN party.
Since the conviction, the judges who handed down the decision have received threats, and the head judge, Benedicte de Perthuis, an expert in financial crime, is receiving protection, including increased patrols and regular rounds around her home.
Rallying her supporters and National Rally party members at a gathering in Paris on Sunday, Le Pen said the far right was the target of a “witch hunt.”
Le Pen’s top lieutenant and National Rally president Jordan Bardella, 29, has slammed “the tyranny of judges”, but he also said on Sunday that the party did not want to “discredit all judges.”
Former justice minister Nicole Belloubet on Tuesday condemned attacks on the French justice system.
Making remarks like “the tyranny of judges” is “a frontal attack on the judiciary,” she said in an opinion piece in French daily Le Monde.
Such public statements “are as inaccurate as they are unacceptable, calling into question the justice system, the concept of the rule of law and even the law itself”, wrote Belloubet.
The Paris Court of Appeal said it would examine Le Pen’s case within a timeframe that could potentially allow her to run in the 2027 polls if her conviction is overturned or her sentence changed.
