{"id":2418774,"date":"2025-04-02T06:41:02","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T10:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/europes-attacks-on-free-speech-elections-prove-vance-right\/"},"modified":"2025-04-02T06:46:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T10:46:51","slug":"europes-attacks-on-free-speech-elections-prove-vance-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/europes-attacks-on-free-speech-elections-prove-vance-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe&#8217;s Attacks On Free Speech, Elections Prove Vance Right"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Feuropes-attacks-on-free-speech-elections-prove-vance-right%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2418774&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In a striking series of events across Europe this week, there has been a notable crackdown on free expression and political opposition. A French court has barred Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally party and a leading candidate for the 2027 presidential election, from holding public office for five years due to alleged financial crimes. Concurrently, a toddler was expelled from a UK preschool for expressing views that were deemed unsupportive of LGBT politics, and a couple was arrested for comments made in a private WhatsApp chat about their daughter&#8217;s school. These incidents illustrate a worrying trend in which authorities in the UK, Germany, and other European nations are increasingly censoring free speech, as highlighted by Vice President J.D. Vance earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>Vance warned about governments criminalizing citizens&#8217; expressions, citing examples from various countries including police raids in Germany for online comments. The situation in Romania also mirrors this trend, where a presidential election was suspended amid claims of russian interference, and a right-wing candidate was barred from running again. The left in Germany is pushing to ban the right-wing Option f\u00fcr Deutschland (AfD) party on grounds of being anti-constitutional. <\/p>\n<p>These actions reflect growing authoritarianism in Europe, where both political candidates and ordinary citizens face repression for their views. With new laws targeting speech, such as the UK&#8217;s Online Safety Act, and the European Union&#8217;s Digital Services Act, citizens are silenced, and democracy is jeopardized. Vance&#8217;s earlier claim on the detrimental effects of suppressing free expression resonates more than ever as these developments continue to unfold.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>It&rsquo;s been a banner week for authoritarians in Europe, and it&rsquo;s only Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, a French court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/31\/world\/europe\/france-marine-le-pen-embezzlement-2027-election-ban.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">banned<\/a> Marine Le Pen, the leader of the right-wing National Rally party and the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Opinion_polling_for_the_2027_French_presidential_election\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">frontrunner<\/a> in the 2027 presidential election, from seeking public office for the next five years. The same day, The Telegraph reported that a toddler had been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the-independent.com\/news\/uk\/home-news\/toddler-suspended-nursery-transphobic-b2724495.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">booted<\/a> from a U.K. preschool for being insufficiently supportive of LGBT politics. Over the weekend, a British couple revealed they had been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/2025\/mar\/29\/parents-arrested-by-hertfordshire-police-for-complaining-about-daughters-school\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">arrested<\/a> based on complaints they expressed in a WhatsApp chat about their daughter&rsquo;s public school.<\/p>\n<p>This is exactly the kind of crackdown on free expression that Vice President J.D. Vance chastised complicit European leaders about in February, in an <a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2025\/02\/18\/vance-speech-munich-full-text-read-transcript-europe\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">address<\/a> at the Munich Security Conference. This week&rsquo;s insanity further proves Vance&rsquo;s dire warnings were right.<\/p>\n<p>Vance called out the U.K., Germany, Sweden, and the European Union for censoring and criminalizing the free expression of their citizens, citing police raids against Germans for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/betrayed-from-within-patrick-byrne-blasts-white-house-staff-after-attending-election-meeting-with-president-trump-sydney-powell-and-gen-flynn\/\" title=\"\u201cBetrayed From Within\u201d: Patrick Byrne Blasts White House Staff After Attending ... Meeting With President Trump, Sydney Powell and Gen. Flynn\">comments posted online<\/a> and the prosecution of a British man who dared to pray in silence outside of an abortion facility.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;[A]cross Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat,&rdquo; he said. That may have been an understatement.<\/p>\n<p>France isn&rsquo;t the first country to bar political opposition candidates from its elections. In December, Romania&rsquo;s highest court suspended its presidential election, blaming Russian interference. (Where have we heard that one before?) Calin Georgescu, who <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/who-is-calin-georgescu-romania-e768e118f8adc84ff2f8a38e30439b78\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">cast<\/a> himself as a Trumpy &ldquo;Romania first&rdquo; candidate, took the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/europe\/thousands-attend-pro-european-rally-romania-ahead-presidential-run-off-vote-2024-12-06\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lead<\/a> in the country&rsquo;s first round of voting before the court canceled the election and then <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/europe\/thousands-protest-cancelled-romanian-election-ahead-repeat-vote-2025-03-26\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">barred<\/a> Georgescu from running again.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, leftists in the German parliament have been threatening a ban on Germany&rsquo;s prominent right-wing party, Alternative&nbsp;f&uuml;r&nbsp;Deutschland (AfD). In January, lawmakers considered asking the country&rsquo;s highest court to &ldquo;examine whether the AfD is an anti-constitutional party,&rdquo; which Politico <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/alternative-for-germany-afd-ban-debate-far-right-german-election\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">characterized<\/a> as the &ldquo;first step toward&nbsp;legally banning it&nbsp;under German law.&rdquo; Leftist lawmaker Carmen Wegge, one of the partisans behind the effort, claimed AfD posed &ldquo;dangers to democracy&rdquo; as she tried to ban the party from the democratic process.<\/p>\n<p>Now, France is the latest in what Vance described as a disturbing trend of &ldquo;European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>In addition to her five-year ban on seeking office, Le Pen, who held a double-digit lead over the next closest candidate in France&rsquo;s presidential election, was also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/31\/world\/europe\/france-marine-le-pen-embezzlement-2027-election-ban.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">slapped<\/a> with a fine and a prison sentence for which she&rsquo;ll likely be subject to two years of house arrest. Like U.S. President Donald Trump, Le Pen was accused of complex financial crimes that were alleged to have taken place years ago, with her opponents eagerly invoking the &ldquo;rule of law&rdquo; to defend their prosecution of political opponents. The similarities <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RapidResponse47\/status\/1906835211884568594\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">weren&rsquo;t lost<\/a> on Trump himself.<\/p>\n<p>After the verdict was disclosed, Le Pen told reporters, &ldquo;I am eliminated, but in reality it&rsquo;s millions of French people whose voices have been eliminated.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>She&rsquo;s right, the voices of European citizens are being silenced &mdash; and not just by courts disenfranchising them by booting their preferred candidates from elections. From parents to preschoolers, Europeans are no longer free to express their views without fear of retribution from the government.<\/p>\n<p>Since Britain&rsquo;s &ldquo;Online Safety Act&rdquo; went into effect in October 2023, authorities have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/hundreds-charged-speech-crimes-jd-162128138.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">charged<\/a> 292 people and convicted 67 under the anti-speech law. Among other things, the law <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/online-safety-act-explainer\/online-safety-act-explainer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">criminalizes<\/a> &ldquo;false information intended to cause non-trivial harm&rdquo; and targets &ldquo;mis- and disinformation.&rdquo; Months before the law went into effect, a mother posted footage of police arresting her autistic daughter for commenting that a <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\">female police officer looked<\/a> like her lesbian grandmother. A spokesman for the West Yorkshire Police <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/uk-england-leeds-66462895\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">confirmed<\/a> to the BBC that &ldquo;a 16-year-old had been arrested on suspicion of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/autistic-teen-bears-full-brunt-of-hate-speech-law-arrested-for-telling-cop-she-looks-like-her-grandma\/\" title=\"Autistic teen ... under &#039;hate ...&#039; law for comparing cop to her grandma.\">homophobic public order offence<\/a>.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, the U.S. State Department&rsquo;s Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Bureau issued a statement <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/StateDRL\/status\/1906360389006160338\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">expressing<\/a> concern &ldquo;about freedom of expression in the United Kingdom.&rdquo; The State Department drew attention to the case of Livia Tossici-Bolt, a 62-year-old woman who <a href=\"https:\/\/adfinternational.org\/en-gb\/cases\/livia-tossici-bolt-uk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">stood trial<\/a> last month for holding a sign near an abortion facility with the words &ldquo;here to talk, if you want.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>As U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/livecoverage\/trump-tariffs-trade-war-stock-market-04-01-2025\/card\/trump-s-tariffs-likely-won-t-spare-u-k-prime-minister-says-1hDyAr0i8M8yy1r8eLTV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">tries<\/a> &mdash; so far, unsuccessfully &mdash; to escape imminent tariffs from the Trump administration, Britain&rsquo;s authoritarian speech codes undermine Starmer&rsquo;s case for special treatment from the United States. <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/95Jz4#selection-3399.4-3399.16\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">According<\/a> to The Telegraph, someone &ldquo;familiar with trade negotiations&rdquo; said the U.K. deserves &ldquo;no free trade without free speech.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Things are no better in Germany, where 16 separate &ldquo;online hate task forces&rdquo; are tasked with tracking down online commenters who are accused of publishing false or &ldquo;hateful&rdquo; speech. Just one of those 16 units &ldquo;works on around 3,500 cases a year,&rdquo; according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/germany-online-hate-speech-prosecution-60-minutes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">report<\/a> from CBS.<\/p>\n<p>German prosecutors readily <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/CollinRugg\/status\/1891325438523547716\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">admitted<\/a> to CBS that in their country it is a &ldquo;crime to insult somebody in public&rdquo; or <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/CollinRugg\/status\/1891325438523547716\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">even<\/a> to repost false information online. Germans whose speech lands on the wrong side of the statute may have their homes raided by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/german-prosecutors-tell-60-minutes-its-crime-insult-people-online-government-raids-offenders-homes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">armed<\/a> police, be slapped with fines or imprisoned, and\/or have their phones and laptops confiscated.<\/p>\n<p>The European Union&rsquo;s Digital Services Act, which took effect last year, ensures speech that authorities deem &ldquo;hateful&rdquo; can be punished across the continent. Trump&rsquo;s Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/technology\/eu-content-law-incompatible-with-us-free-speech-tradition-says-fccs-carr-2025-03-03\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">blasted<\/a> the law as &ldquo;incompatible&rdquo; with the &ldquo;free speech tradition.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Jailing citizens for the expression of ideas and barring political candidates from elections are two sides of the same authoritarian coin. Neither is compatible with self-government.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;[S]hutting down media, shutting down elections, or shutting people out of the political process,&rdquo; as Vance told European leaders in February, &ldquo;is the most surefire way to destroy democracy.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>He was right. Unfortunately, European leaders appear to have taken his statement as an instruction manual instead of an urgent warning.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Elle Purnell is the elections editor at The Federalist. Her work has been featured by Fox Business, RealClearPolitics, the Tampa Bay Times, and the Independent Women&#8217;s Forum. She received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @_ellepurnell.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>European authoritarians are thriving this week; Le Pen banned from office<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1353,"featured_media":2418775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/europe.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[6571,8447,32311,15469],"class_list":["post-2418774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-elections","tag-europe","tag-free-speech","tag-vance"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/europe.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1353"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2418774"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2418778,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418774\/revisions\/2418778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2418775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2418774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2418774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2418774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}