The European Parliament decided to suspend legal immunity for Marine Le Pen on Thursday. (AURELIEN MEUNIER/GETTY IMAGES)
The European Parliament decided to suspend legal immunity for Marine Le Pen on Thursday, for posting three graphic, brutal images of Islamic State group violence on social media.
Le Pen, who leads her hardline National Front party in the body and is lobbying for a nation-wide referendum vote on France's European Union membership, posted the images in 2015.
The images were of the beheading of James Foley, an American journalist slain in Syria in 2014. The sanction allows a Parisian court to potentially prosecute her, and she could face three years in jail.
The move sets up an unprecedented dynamic in the upcoming French presidential election, where polling shows Le Pen poised advance past the first round of voting on April 23, and compete in the final round on May 7.
"My first trip as President of the Republic will be in Brussels, where I shall be demanding the return of our sovereignty," she tweeted on Thursday.
Le Pen has been compared to President Donald Trump, as part of the global populist wave. She was spotted at Trump Tower in New York in January, shortly before Trump's inauguration.
"Donald Trump has made possible what was presented as completely impossible. So it's a sign of hope for those who cannot bear wild globalization, who cannot bear the political life led by the elites," Le Pen told CNN in November.
Adding to the chaos of French politics, the previous front-runner in the race, conservative Francois Fillon, has been embroiled in a financial scandal and some view his candidacy as potentially collapsing. But Fillon insists he will not drop, and cede his party's nomination to potentially formidable alternatives -- former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Bordeaux Mayor Alain Juppe -- both of whom he defeated in the primary. Juppe has officially ruled out being a replacement, but pressure exists in some corners on the three men to consider such a maneuver.
"From the start, I have not been treated like anyone else facing the justice system," Fillon told reporters on Wednesday, after being summoned to speak to judges. He said he was the target of "political assassination," and added, "it's not just me they are killing, but the French presidential election."
