Marine Le Pen, acquitted for the publication of photos of executions of the Islamic State

The French justice acquitted the far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Tuesday for the dissemination in December 2015 of images of executions committed by the jihadist group Islamic State (ISIS, in its acronym in English), something for which the Prosecutor's Office had demanded a fine of 5,000 euros. The far-right MEP Gilbert Collard received the same sentence for similar acts, committed both days after the jihadist attacks on November 13, 2015 that killed 130 people in Paris and neighboring Saint-Denis. The Nanterre correctional court has recognized an "informative vocation" in the publication of these photographs and estimated that their dissemination "contributes to the public debate" as long as it does not trivialize the violence, according to the France Info station.

Le Pen, leader of the National Regrouping (RN, formerly the National Front) and Collard disseminated images of murders committed in Syria through social networks and in response to the French journalist Jean-Jacques Bourdin, who had compared his party to the terrorist organization .

"That is Daesh [Islamic State]," Le Pen then wrote alongside the photos.

Among the images were some of the beheading of American reporter James Foley, as well as a man crushed by the chains of a tank and a prisoner burned alive in a cage.

Alerted by the Ministry of the Interior, the French Prosecutor's Office opened an investigation for the dissemination of violent images, a charge that ended up becoming the dissemination of violent messages that can damage human dignity and be seen by minors.

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This crime is punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros.

The process, which began on February 10, suffered several delays before its start because the justice had to request two separate requests, first from the European Parliament and later from the French National Assembly, where Le Pen is a deputy.

In addition, the far-right leader refused to be subjected to a psychiatric examination, considering it demeaning.

The French politician, who lost the second round of the presidential past, in 2017, against the current president, Emmanuel Macron, and one of the favorites for the 2022 elections, denied in the trial that his images could incite terrorism or attempt against human dignity. "It is the crime that violates human dignity, not its photographic reproduction," he stressed at the beginning of the process, where he also stressed that those photos only provoked "disgust, rejection, non-adherence."