Marine Le Pen’s loss of EU Parliament immunity is going to help her get elected: French people and other Europeans see it as a plot by the establishment to silence her, it shows the EU Parliament is undemocratic, says David Coburn, UKIP MEP.
French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has had her EU Parliamentary immunity revoked. The decision follows the second round of voting held by EU Parliament lawmakers. Le Pen may now face prosecution for tweeting pictures of Islamic State violence. In her latest interview for a French TV channel, Le Pen called the allegations politically motivated.
According to David Coburn, Le Pen has a point saying that.
“This is an absolute scandal – the lights are going out all over Europe on freedom of speech. And the European Parliament which continues to maintain …the mother of European democracy has obviously given up that responsibility. The idea that you can stop people speaking freely is absolutely wrong,” he adds.
According to Coburn, “the Socialists always hate freedom of speech, it is completely against their philosophy. And they were pushing for this, and you could see them all cheering for this. And that is a scandal. The Socialists and the European Parliament do not want freedom of speech.”
READ MORE: EU lawmakers vote to strip Le Pen of immunity for tweeting pictures of ISIS violence
“Marine Le Pen is only pointing out the obvious. They’ve had terrible catastrophes in France: Bataclan and other things. Of course, she has a right to discuss this,” he says.
Coburn says he agrees with many other politicians who now say that this is going to help Marine Le Pen get elected.
“French people are not stupid and neither is the rest of Europe. We could see that this is a plot by the establishment to nobble her and it is not going to work,” he said.
“People see what this is all about. It is blatantly trying to nobble her campaign. And it is the European Parliament interfering in French internal affairs. We should not be doing that. We should keep out it,” he continues.
“It questions in fact that we have any immunity here which means people cannot speak their minds freely. So, therefore, it just shows this parliament to be undemocratic. And all I can say, Le Pen will benefit from that”, Coburn told RT.
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