The court discards part of the contracts for which she was convicted of embezzlement

It is about 30% of contracts of parliamentary assistants of the European Parliament who, in reality, had worked for the party, according to the sentence handed down by the Correctional Court on March 31.

The Appeal decision had the approval of the Prosecutor’s Office, which considered that those contracts, which appeared in a table with the rest, They did not present evidence that they had been signed.

In the first instance, the Public Ministry considered that, despite everything, they should be included in the indictment and were part of the total damage attributed to the European Parliament, 4.4 million euros between 2004 and 2016.

Now, change your approach and consider that should not be taken into account, a decision that was accepted by the Court of Appeal.

Le Pen’s lawyers had fought unsuccessfully to achieve this judicial victory in the first instance and at this Wednesday’s hearing they were grateful to the Prosecutor’s Office for its change of attitude.

In the few statements they are giving to journalists, the lawyers are showing that the attitude of appellate judges are less hostile to their cause than those of first instance.

A difference to which is added the change in strategy of the far-right leader, who during the first day of the trial last Tuesday recognized the possibility of having committed a crime, although she insisted on the lack of voluntariness.

“If I have committed a crime, as everyone seems to say we have, We never had the feeling that we had committed the slightest crime,” Le Pen said, that throughout the trial in the first instance she had denied the commission of any wrongdoing and had even questioned whether justice could examine her legislative functions.

Five years of disqualification

That point served the Correctional Institution to support the imposition of a sentence of five years of disqualification with immediate preventive application, a decision that currently prevents Le Pen from leading a fourth presidential candidacy, scheduled for 2027.

With this new strategy, the far-right leader, favorite of the polls for those elections, seeks to exhaust its last options to compete in the conquest of the Elysée.

Its objective is that the appellate judges reduce the disqualification penalty or do not impose its compliance preventivelywhich would allow him to present himself.

But Le Pen has already assured that in the event that this new trial, whose sentence is expected in the summer, does not have the green light to appear, she will not wait for a second appeal before the Supreme Court and will hand over the baton to her dolphin, the young MEP Jordan Bardella.

The 30-year-old politician has been preparing his replacement candidacy for months and enjoys a high level of popularity, with a large following on social networks and notable success of his books.

Furthermore, the polls give him even greater support than Le Pen has, although a good part of the political class questions the abilities of this young politician without university training to lead the country in such a turbulent geopolitical moment as the one the world is going through.