MEPs revoke Marine Le Pen’s immunity over violent ISIS images

Members of the European parliament’s legal affairs committee voted on Tuesday 28th of February 2017 by an overwhelming majority to waive Le Pen’s immunity, after a request from the prosecutor of Nanterre in west Paris the Guardian reports

Marine Le Pen

This was the fall out of a December 2015 tweet of three graphic images of the terrorist group called the Islamic State killing some hostages. La Pen, the Front National leader who is also an MEP herself since 2004 tweeted the pictures in an angry response to a journalist who compared the Front National to ISIS.

The French prosecutor opened an inquiry under a French law banning the distribution of violent images or those inciting terrorism.

Marine Le Pen who is running for French presidency had been favoured in a June 2016 poll to win the race. She was fully in support of Brexit and wants France to follow suit and quit using the Euro, her popularity was affirmed in recent polls in Feb 2017 where she is predicted to win the first round polls by beating her four main rivals on April 23 and then move through a two way run off against either independent candidate Emmanuel Macron and conservative Francois Fillon according to the Daily Express. This poll, conducted by Opinionway however predicts that Ms Le Pen’s successful run could die out after just the first round, with the poll suggesting she will go down by 42 percent to Mr Macron’s 58 percent or a 44 to 56 percent against Mr Fillion.

The United Kingdom unexpectedly voted to leave the European Union against forecasts, efforts after the referendum to upturn the outcome has been unsuccessful with article 50 (which will signal the formal exit) expected to be triggered soon, just today a significant step towards that was made with the house of lords voting to protect the rights of EU citizens in the UK after Brexit.

President Trump was also not expected to win the US presidency with polls showing he would lose with a wide margin which turned out to be wrong as he on with a big margin in the electoral college.

Marine Le Pen is riding on both Brexit and Trumps ideology, a dangerous combination for her rivals with unpredictable voters response.

As always, there is always a story behind any news and the story behind this points to a jittery EU fearing a Marine Le Pen upset and thus want to take her out of the equation so as not to risk another powerful EU member leaving the Union which would most assuredly topple a wobbling alliance pushed off balance with the shock British Exit. This is definitely not about Ms Le Pens tweet which she did to defend herself.