Quote (bogie160 @ Apr 1 2025 04:55am)

The nut job was banned because he won the first leg and was poised to win the second, i.e. a majority of Romanian voters preferred the nut job in power. When Romanians cannot choose their own president the logical conclusion is that Romania is not a democracy.

Quote (PapaPsych @ Mar 31 2025 11:29pm)

He won the first election, then when it was apparent he would win the runoff, the regime in Romania annulled the first election that the Supreme Court already ruled valid when previously challenged on the same grounds, and canceled the second one.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Mar 31 2025 11:46pm)

The punishment is disproportional to the severity of the crime in this case. Le Pen was accused of having misappropriated EU funding. Specifically, that the personnel she had hired using funding for parliamentary assistants in the EU parliament was used for other purposes, like working as her personal assistants or even her security guards. So she used funds which were intended to hire people who work for her to... hire people who work for, but in unintended roles. Meh. That's just about the most benign and irrelevant form of political corruption you can imagine. Barring the leading candidate of the opposition from running in the presidential election over such a nothingburger is egregious.


Also, this will in hindsight turn out to be a pyrrhic victory for the EUrocrats and establishment forces in France...

Quote (SkySwallower @ 1 Apr 2025 08:02)

1. Stop trivializing politicians stealing from their constituents.

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2. Upholding the law is important in itself. If the next leader of the far right is more charismatic, so be it - that should and can not factor in the punishment for Lepen, that's how the law has to work.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Apr 1 2025 01:22pm)

No money was stolen, it was misappropriated. She spent the money which was lawfully allocated to her and her party, she hired personnel with it as intended, the only crime is that this personnel worked a different kind of supporting job for the party. Like I've said, this ranks at the very bottom of the scale of corruption and warrants a slap on the wrists and a fine, not a 4 year prison term and a 5 year ban from running for office. But I'm sure the fact that she is the leading candidate of the anti-EU and anti-establishment opposition didn't factor into this highly disproportional sentence /s :rolleyes:


Oh please, you're extremely gullible if you think financial shenanigans on this level aren't common practice in politics across Europe. The point of criticism isn't that Le Pen got punished, it's the selective enforcement and the far too harsh and politically convenient sentence.

Quote (SkySwallower @ 1 Apr 2025 17:26)

1. If you "misuse funds" you are stealing, that should be clear. Also your characterisation seems to be wrong:

"The prosecution accused the three-time presidential candidate of having hired four fictitious assistants when she was a member of the European Parliament (2004-2017). In reality, they were working for the Front National (FN, now the RN). The assistants, who were paid by the European Parliament, carried out tasks linked to the management of the party rather than work related to European parliamentary activity"

So are you misinformed or lying?

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2. You just argued the sentence wasn't even convenient, which is it now?

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3. It is telling who is complaining about the sentence (Putin and people who are weirdly friendly to him mostly). Gives me an ever better feeling that le pen deserved it :)

Quote (lastor @ Apr 1 2025 12:28am)

23% of the voters in the first leg voted for him, not a majority. Like I said before, all he had to do was not break the law and he would have won, pretty easy for most people.

Quote (PapaPsych @ Apr 2 2025 03:52am)

He didn't break the law, someone associated with him allegedly broke some laws, that was it.