ROME – Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Tuesday criticized the decision to ban French far-right leader Marine Le Pen from running for office, arguing that it disenfranchises millions of voters.
“I don’t know the merits of the accusations against Marine Le Pen, or the reasons for such a strong decision,” Meloni, leader of the post-fascist Brothers of Italy party, told Il Messaggero.
“But I think that no one who cares about democracy can rejoice at a sentence that targets the leader of a major party and deprives millions of citizens of representation.”
Le Pen was found guilty on Monday of creating fake jobs at the EU Parliament on behalf of her National Rally (RN) party, charges she has denied. As a result, she was barred from running for office for five years, jeopardizing her chances of contesting the 2027 French presidential election.
Although Le Pen plans to appeal the ruling, she was also handed a four-year prison sentence, with half suspended and the remainder to be served under electronic monitoring.
Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the League party, also criticized the ruling, calling it a “declaration of war by Brussels.”
“In Paris, they condemned Marine Le Pen and want to exclude her from political life. A bad film that we are also seeing in other countries like Romania,” Salvini wrote on social media.
He further accused European leaders of political maneuvering, stating, “A declaration of war by Brussels, at a time when the war instincts of Von der Leyen and Macron are frightening. We won’t be intimidated, we won’t stop: full speed ahead, my friend!”
Salvini, a frequent critic of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron, has aligned his League party with Le Pen’s National Rally in the European Parliament under the Patriots for Europe bloc.