French Court Orders Marine Le Pen To Undergo Psychiatric Testing For Sharing Violent Images Of Islamic State

A court in France has ordered far-right leader Marine Le Pen to undergo psychiatric tests as part of an ongoing inquiry into her act of sharing images of Islamic State (IS) group atrocities, BBC has reported.

On Thursday (20 September), Le Pen voiced outrage at a court order that required her to undergo a psychiatric evaluation in the case. Le Pen took to Twitter condemning the court actions. “I thought I had been through it all: well, no! For having condemned Daesh (IS) horrors in tweets, the ‘justice system’ is putting me through psychiatric tests! Just how far will they go?” she tweeted.

Le Pen further tweeted pictures of the court order and described the move as “crazy”.

Le Pen posted the images in response to a journalist who drew a comparison between the terror group IS and her avowedly far-right party.

The images posted by her back in 2015, included one showing the decapitated body of IS victim James Foley. The other images Le Pen posted included a tank running over a man in an orange jumpsuit, while another jumpsuit-clad man was shown in a cage being burned alive.

Le Pen later deleted the picture of Foley after a request from his family.

Le Pen, however, can be charged under a French law that makes circulating “violent messages that incite terrorism or pornography or seriously harm human dignity” and “that can be viewed by a minor” as a punishable offence. She could be slapped with a fine or even jailed.

The court move has come under criticism with some comparing it to the draconian communist regime in the Soviet Union that used to declare dissidents criminally insane and incarcerate them in psychiatric units.