French Court Orders Psychiatric Evaluation for National Rally Leader Le Pen

Marine Le Pen, the French nationalist leader who lost in the second round of the presidential elections last year to Emanuel Macron, has been ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation by the judge presiding over her trial on charges of disseminating violent images.

Le Pen posted three graphic images of executions by Islamic terrorists, including the beheading of American journalist James Foley, on Twitter.

Reuters:

The tribunal declined to confirm it had ordered the evaluation but said the assessments were a normal part of such probes.

“I thought I had seen it all: but no! For having denounced the horrors of #Daesh in tweets, the ‘justice’ is submitting me to a psychiatric evaluation! How far will they go?” Le Pen wrote on Twitter. “It’s UNBELIEVABLE.”

She later told reporters she would skip the test. “I’d like to see how the judge would try and force me do it,” she said.

Le Pen’s criticism fits the party’s narrative that it is persecuted by judges as part of an attempt by the establishment to undermine it politically.

Le Pen was placed under formal investigation in March on suspicion of disseminating violent images. The law states that medical evaluations must be carried out in such probes.

Le Pen and her party have been targeted by a series of other judicial probes, including over the alleged misuse of EU funds.

According to a copy of the court document dated September 11, which Le Pen published on Twitter, the judge wants the evaluation to assess if she suffers from any mental illness and, if so, if that could have affected her understanding of what she was doing when she posted the tweets.

The expert is also tasked with determining whether her mental health could be a risk to the public.

Obviously, Le Pen is crazy for wanting to raise awareness about the utter brutality and inhumanity of Islamic terrorists.

The use of psychiatry in pursuit of political goals is hardly new. The Soviets routinely committed dissidents to mental institutions because they were obviously nuts if they didn’t believe they lived in a socialist paradise.

In the US, we are seeing the employment of mental health professionals by the left to deligitimize Donald Trump, trying to show he is mentally ill. Similar tactics have been used against Republican presidents and presidential candidates from Barry Goldwater in 1964 to George Bush.

There is something so 1984 about branding your political opponents crazy because they disagree with you. It is the tactic of totalitarians and the far left French courts appear to be quite comfortable with the practice.