HMM: European Parliament lifts Marine Le Pen’s immunity for tweeting gruesome images of violence.

As Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Front party, rises in the polls ahead of France’s presidential election next month, authorities will now be able to pursue a case against her. Speaking on French television Thursday morning, she was quick to condemn her European colleagues for what she called “a political inquiry.”

In December 2015, Le Pen tweeted a picture of James Foley, the American journalist executed by the Islamic State in August 2014. “Daesh is THIS!” she wrote as a caption, using another name for the Islamic State.

After a day of immediate and widespread outrage on social media — including from Foley’s family — Le Pen ultimately took down the tweet. “I did not know it was a picture of James Foley,” she said at the time. “It’s accessible on Google. I learned this morning that his family is asking me to withdraw it. Obviously, I immediately withdrew it.”

Because French law considers the dissemination of violent images a potential incitement of terrorist activity, prosecutors were keen to pursue a case against Le Pen. But they could not, as Le Pen was a member of the European Parliament, an institution that guarantees immunity to its deputies to protect their freedom of speech.

That immunity, however, applies specifically to the work deputies do in the European Parliament itself and can be revoked at the request of a respective country.

This looks like a preemptive strike by the French/EU establishment.