An EU Parliament body has barred four far-right French MEPs from doing official election-monitoring trips after they took part in missions to Russia in the run-up to its invasion of Ukraine, reports EUobserver.
The four French MEPs — Nicolas Bay, Hervé Juvin, Jean-Lin Lacapelle, and Thierry Mariani — went to Russia to observe parliamentary elections last September even though there was no formal EP mission to do so.
They were told that the ban would last until the end of their mandates in 2024.
"We have decided to exclude you from participating in official EP election observation delegations until the end of this parliamentary term," said the parliament's Democracy Support and Election Coordination Group (DEG), in letters dated 3 March.
In a joint statement to EUobserver on Friday (4 March), three of the sanctioned French MEPs — Juvin, Lacapelle, and Mariani — called the decision "iniquitous" and complained that the chamber had imposed a "drastic reduction of the rights of parliamentarians."
They said they were considering an appeal against the sanction, but that the appeals procedure was unclear.