Le Pen on Thursday expressed her shock at a psychiatric examination ordered by the court as part of its indictment. The leader of the National Rally (RN), the ex-FN, was not the only one on Twitter to comment on the latest move against her.
Her political enemy, Jean-Luc Mélenchon also criticised this decision by denouncing the “psychiatricization of a political decision”. He said that not all methods to discredit rivals were permissible.
Désaccord total avec la psychiatrisation de la décision politique. Madame Le Pen est politiquement responsable de ses actes politiques. Tous les moyens ne sont ni bons ni acceptables pour la combattre. Ce n'est pas avec des méthodes pareilles qu'on fera reculer l'extrême droite.
— Jean-Luc Mélenchon (@JLMelenchon) September 20, 2018
It is clear that Le Pen has become a victim of judicial harassment. She implied as much on Thursday after she received a summons to a psychiatric assessment in the context of a judicial procedure.
In December 2015, a few weeks after the attacks in Saint-Denis and Paris, Le Pen posted the horrors perpetrated by ISIS on her Twitter account. She tweeted images of executions by members of ISIS, including the beheading of American journalist James Foley.
Followed at the time by more than a million people, Marine Le Pen challenged Jean-Jacques Bourdin and his media outlet RMC / BFMTV after he drew a parallel between Le Pen’s party and the terrorist organisation.
The publication of the very violent images had sparked a heated controversy, which Le Pen said reflected on her attackers. “I now have my medal of resistance against Daesh [ISIS]. I am therefore worried about fighting terrorism. It’s the world upside down, ” she told French daily Le Figaro after being indicted.
The order of undergoing a psychiatric examination is completely “hallucinating” said Le Pen. She said the French justice system is inspiring fear at the moment.
C'est proprement HALLUCINANT. Ce régime commence VRAIMENT à faire peur. MLP pic.twitter.com/WCX6WBCgi4
— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) September 20, 2018
But Laurence Blisson, General Secretary of the Judicial Union does not think so: “It is an obligation for the judge. There is a list of offenses that require, before judgment and at the time of the application of the sentence, a medical and psychiatric expertise. This is the case for the “dissemination of violent images” but this is also the case for a whole host of other offenses such as garbage fires, for example “.
By digging a little into the Code of Criminal Procedure, Le Pen was referred to article 706-47-1: “Persons prosecuted for one of the offenses mentioned in article 706-47 of this code must to be subjected, before any judgment on the merits, to a medical expertise “.
Pursued for “dissemination of violent, pornographic or anti-dignity message, accessible to a minor”, an offense mentioned in this article of law, it is therefore effectively affected by this measure.
Blisson added: “From the moment there is an article of the Code of Criminal Procedure, it is an obligation. This is a very formal procedure, and the judge complies with it regardless of the identity of the accused “. But he did not comment on the spurious charges preceeding the fresh order.
It is however impossible to compel someone to take this exam. “If Marine Le Pen does not want to answer the expert’s questions, she can do it. He will simply write in his report that he has not answered the questions. And if she decides not to go to this examination, we can not force her to do so,” concluded the magistrate.
A possibility already put forward by Marine Le Pen who told BFMTV on Thursday that she would not “submit”.