Marine Le Pen's parliamentary immunity withdrawn after IS tweets

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Sharecast News | 02 Mar, 2017

French National Front leader Marine Le Pen has lost her right to parliamentary immunity in the country after MEPs decided to allow French prosecutors to take legal action over her use of graphic images of IS killings on Twitter.

Le Pen had been protected by immunity laws from the European Union after the prosecutors pursued her in relation to a law in France which bans the use of graphically violent images and those which incite terrorism.

However, a plenary session of the European Parliament convened on Thursday to approve the removal of the MEP immunity for Le Pen.

The politician, who has gained momentum ahead of the French presidential election later this year, posted three images of killings by IS members in 2015.

The series of angry tweets sent by Le Pen in December 2015 were in response to a French journalist who compared her FN party to the radical Islamic group.

It is not the first time that Le Pen has run into such legal issues at the European Parliament. Four years ago, she had her immunity lifted by the institution after she made derogatory remarks about Muslims praying in public.

Elections will take place in France in April and May to determine the next president of the country, with current polls suggesting that Le Pen will triumph in the first round, but was likely to lose to centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron in May's second round.

Former prime minister Francois Fillon was previously seen as the favourite to take over from Francois Hollande this year, before falling victim to a series of scandals, including allegations that he paid his wife a salary for a non-existent position.

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