Jerome Riviere
speaker
60 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard Apr 2025
Jerome Riviere’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
It is, in fact, not that complicated. Basically, she was a member of the European Parliament and she was president of her party, the national rally at the time called Front National. As a member of the European Parliament, and I believe it is the same in the United States, you have an allocation money so that you can hire administrative and political assistants.
With this money, she hired people and these people were working for her. But instead of working in Brussels or in Strasbourg, where the European Parliament is located, they were also working in Paris, where she is working as president of her party. And basically, they say this is embezzlement because she was using funding from the European Parliament to do politics in France.
But when you want to be elected as a member of parliament, when you do your job, you do it in your country. Again, it's part of the idea that the European Parliament doesn't like nations. And to be honest, every single party has done so for the past 25 years. The actual prime minister in France, Francois Bayrou, was accused of the exact same thing.
He was found not guilty a couple of months ago, but it was the exact same accusation. That's why when Marine Le Pen was sentenced with this terrible sentence, banned from running, he said he was troubled. And he can be troubled because she should not have been sentenced. Do you think the appeal will be successful? Yes, but you have to see what they did. And this is a nuclear bomb.
That's what she qualified. This lawfare, the weapon they used by banning her from running, makes it that an appeal, if she's successful, will be after the election. So after the election, they'll tell her, oh... You're not guilty, but the election is over. She's not president. She was not candidate. So this is what is really unfair.
So as a reaction, the high magistrate decided that they are trying to move the agenda so that maybe by the summer of 2026, they might have the appeal and they might have a result. But seriously, it's not up to judges, however good or bad they are, it's not up to judges to decide who's going to be able to run for the presidency of France.
There is no higher Supreme Court than the French people in France or the US people, American people in the United States. Judges shouldn't be able to do that.
Yeah, but it's quite different to be prime minister or to be president. Prime minister, you don't go through an election. You get named prime minister because you are the head of the majority of a lot of members of Congress. And I think he's perfectly suited for that. Running for president, it's a specific tie between one candidate and the people. Why did Donald Trump, why was he so successful?
Because he established a very specific relationship with the American people. He's talking to them. They relate to what he's saying. This is why he got elected. Another Republican having the exact same program might not have been elected. So Marine Le Pen has been building this relationship with the French people for many years. So yes, Jordan Berdella would step up, I believe so.
Other people might step up, but the big question is, it's not up to judges to decide about who is going to be running or not.
People are outraged throughout France. Even the extreme left is feeling uncomfortable with the decision because they have understood that once we let some judges strike and decide that they ban someone from running, it can happen another time. And one thing that we have to... slowly think about is we always talk about the separation of powers.
It's a big thing, just separation of power between the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. On principle, of course, it is good and essential. But the question in France now is Who's checking on the judges? And I want to give you two examples because it explains the questioning that a lot of people have right now. Recently, we have a judge.
He was putting his daughter, 13-year-old daughter, for prostitution on websites. He was discovered. He was brought to trial. And after several tries and mistrials, his sentence was three years, non-executed three years. I mean, what kind of messages does it send to the French people for a politician using political funds that should be used in Europe? They are used in France.
You go four years in jail and you are banned five years from running. But if you're a judge and you put your 13-year-old child out for prostitution, the only thing you get is basically a slap on the hand. It doesn't make any sense. It is not possible. We also have... Sorry.
Appointed. They are appointed, and then they cannot go away. We have had, in the news in France, we have a huge problem with immigration, and a lot of it is a violent immigration. And we have a lot of immigrants that are violent criminals that are supposed to be evicted from France. There is a judgment saying that they should be evicted. 90% of them are not evicted.
The judgment stays without anything being done. And we see a lot of them committing crimes again and again. And we know that some judges decided that the sentence should not be carried out. who at one point will come and decide that it is not fair that those judges are not doing their job properly. So the check and balance works only if there is a real balance.
You know, when we say we don't want to comment, in France there is a big saying, I don't want to comment on a judicial decision. The judges comment daily on political decisions. They even decide whether they are good or not. So at one point, we have to put this balance back.
And honestly, what President Trump is doing, just by talking about it, by saying, I don't agree with this judge or this judge's decision, it's making people realize, yes, we can criticize justice when it's not done properly. They don't have some kind of papal knowledge. You know, we say that the pope knows his... knows everything regarding religion. They don't know everything regarding justice.
We can't criticize them. And they do mistakes. And when they do mistakes, they should be blamed for it.
To go to your point, the judge, when the judge gave the sentence on Monday to Marine Le Pen, she said... It is, I don't want Marine Le Pen to be able to run. Because if she were found guilty during the appeal, if I don't ban her now, then she would be elected when found guilty later. So I take the personal decision to ban her from running. I mean, she said it's a political decision.
Showing 21–40 of 60 · page 2 of 3
← Previous
Next →