“I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong.”

It will be in the middle of summer when the court makes its ruling public. During the process, the far-right leader He has tried to tip the balance in his favor by resorting to one of the usual arguments of his defense: maintaining that he was unaware that he was acting irregularly. During the opening of his appeal trialthe National Rally (RN) politician already stated that she had “not had the feeling of having been doing anything wrong.”

“I want to make it clear from the beginning that, if a crime was committed, we did not at all have the feeling that we had done anything wrong,” said Le Pen during her appearance, reported by the agency. Reuters. He was referring to the accusation of having embezzled more than four million of euros of European Union funds, by using money allocated to his work in the European Parliament to pay staff who actually worked for his party.

“The European Parliament did not warn us of anything, as it could have done,” he said. “I firmly believe that we never hide anything”he added. Initially, Le Pen was sentenced to four years in prison (two of them exempt from serving and the other two under house arrest) and to pay a fine of 100,000 euros. Finally, after appealing the sentence, the Prosecutor’s Office reduced the sentence to four years in prison with only one year of house arrest with an electronic bracelet and five of immediate disqualification.

If she is convicted, the leader of the extreme right could appeal to the Supreme Court, which would rule at the end of the year, but she herself has already announced that she will make a decision on a new candidacy for the presidency as soon as she hears the Appeal ruling.

With his defense, Le Pen is trying to guarantee her fourth candidacy for the Elysée after having been a finalist in the last two against the centrist Emmanuel Macron. Especially since the polls place her as the clear favorite for the elections. If the disqualification is not lifted, the French far-right party already has a plan B: the young Jordan Bardella, who has increased his public agenda in recent months.