FILE - In this May 2, 2017 file photo, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen delivers a speech during a conference in Paris. Le Pen, says that the party's long-time bank, Societe Generale, has closed its accounts in what amounts to a "banking fatwa" to suffocate it. She said that a legal complaint would be filed against Societe Generale, one of France's largest banks, as well as against HSBC, her personal bank which also allegedly shut her out. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)
November 22, 2017 - 7:02 AM
PARIS - Marine Le Pen, head of France's far-right National Front, says that the party's long-time bank, Societe Generale, has closed its accounts in what she says amounts to a "banking fatwa" to suffocate it.
Le Pen claimed at a news conference Wednesday that the move is purely political and endangers the democratic process. She said a legal complaint would be filed against Societe Generale, one of France's largest banks, as well as against HSBC, her personal bank, which also allegedly shut her out.
Societe Generale denied that the closing of National Front accounts was political, saying such moves "depend purely on banking reasons."
Le Pen lost the May presidential election to centrist Emmanuel Macron. She claimed that powers in finance could become decisive in politics, sending opposition parties into "banking exile."
News from © The Associated Press, 2017