Le Pen loses immunity over tweets of atrocities

THE European Parliament yesterday lifted French far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s immunity from prosecution over her tweeting of images of Islamic State atrocities.

EU lawmakers voted to deprive National Front leader Le Pen of her immunity in the case, launched by French prosecutors in 2015 over a graphic series of images on Twitter.

They included a photo of the decapitated body of US journalist James Foley.

“I think the result is clear, a big majority is in favour of the lifting of immunity,” acting parliament speaker Dimitrios Papadimoulis said.

The lifting of Le Pen’s immunity was effective immediately, officials said.

But it concerns only the tweets, and not a separate probe into allegations that Le Pen misused public funds when hiring a parliamentary aide, they said.

On Tuesday Le Pen dismissed efforts to lift her immunity as “part of the system that wants to stop the French people’s candidate that I am”.

Le Pen has so far refused to attend an interview over the tweet investigation with police in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, citing her status as an MEP. But her senior aide has been placed under investigation for “the dissemination of violent images”.

Le Pen, who has over 830,000 Twitter followers, addressed the tweets to a French TV journalist whom she accused of likening her party to the jihadist group.

The images were tweeted with the caption “This is Daesh” and showed Foley’s bloodied body with his decapitated head on his torso, as well as a man on fire in a cage, and a victim being driven over by a tank.