The French far-right leader of the National Front is due to appear in court on 20 October over remarks made at a Lyon meeting in 2010, when she criticised Muslims praying in the streets, the local prosecutor confirmed.
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Ms Le Pen, who had been addressing a crowd in Lyon, eastern France, was immediately investigated for inciting racial hatred, but the enquiry was initially dropped.
The move to put her on trial comes after the the European Parliament has stripped National Front leader of her immunity as a lawmaker In July 2013. “I will go before the court in order to say so”.
“It is an occupation of sections of the territory, of neighborhoods in which religious law applies – it is an occupation”.
For her part, Le Pen seems to welcome the trial: “Of course, I’m not going to miss such an occasion”, she told Agence France-Presse. “There are no tanks, there are no soldiers, but it is an occupation nevertheless, and it weighs on people”.
“Political leaders must be able to speak without being afraid of being brought before a judge”, he said.
Speaking to foreign journalists, Le Pen said of the refugees that “we should warm them up, feed them and then send them back where they came from”.
Tuesday’s announcement will be a blow to the party just as it was hoping to build up momentum ahead of the regional elections in December and the presidential election in 2017, in which Le Pen is expected to perform strongly.
Her opinion poll ratings have not suffered from a row with her father Jean-Marie, the FN founder, whom she expelled from the party in August for comments playing down the Holocaust.
Marine Le Pen has been credited with “de-demonising” the FN and throwing out its more xenophobic and extremist elements since taking control of the party in January 2011.
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Marine Le Pen decided enough was enough after her father repeated his view that the Nazi gas chambers were merely a “detail” of history and also claimed France should establish close relations with Russian Federation to save the “white world”. “We’re quicker to prosecute those who denounce the illegal behaviour of fundamentalists … than to prosecute the fundamentalists behaving illegally”, she wrote.
