French populist leader Marine Le Pen has rejected orders by a French court that she undergo a psychiatric evaluation in connection with her prosecution for tweeting out Islamic State executions.
The Rassemblement National (RN) leader revealed on Twitter that he had been ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation as part of the case against her saying, ” thought I had been through it all: well, no! For denouncing the horrors of Daesh (Isis) by tweets the “justice system” has referred me for a psychiatric assessment. How far will they go?!”
Le Pen then tweeted out a picture of the order saying, “It’s a hallucination. This regime is really starting to scare me.”
The order comes from the district court of Nanterre and is dated on September the 11th.
National secretary of the magistrates union Jacky Coulon told Franceinfo that the process was automatic and said, “There is a mandatory psychiatric expertise in the context of an indictment when it comes to the dissemination of a violent message.”
He added that he did not think the evaluation was being done for political purposes.
The move was met with condemnation from an unlikely source in the form of far-left French political leader Jean-Luc Melenchon who wrote on Twitter, “Total disagreement with the psychiatrisation of this political decision. Madame Le Pen is politically responsible for her political actions,” and added, “It is not with such methods that the extreme right will be countered.”
Support for Le Pen also came in from overseas with populist Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini writing, ” I have no words! Solidarity with her and the French who love freedom!”
The case against Le Pen stems from Tweets she wrote in 2015 highlighting the brutality of the Islamic state by posting execution videos the terror group had filmed. Earlier this year she was indicted for “dissemination of violent images” and could face three years in prison or a fine of up to 75,000 euros if found guilty.
It is unlikely Le Pen will attend a psychiatric evaluation after telling French broadcaster BFMTV, “The examining magistrate has requested that I be submitted to a psychiatric report, I will not, of course, submit to this psychiatric expertise and I am waiting to see how the magistrate intends to force me.”
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com
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