On Tuesday, the New York Times reports, a French court acquitted Marine Le Pen, the president of the far-right National Front party, of charges that she incited religious hatred against Muslim with comments she made while campaigning for her current position.

In 2010, at a rally in Lyon, Le Pen compared Muslims praying in the street to the German occupation of France during World War II.

“If you want to talk about the occupation, let’s talk about that, by the way, because here we are talking about the occupation of our space,” she said, according to the Times.

“It’s an occupation of entire stretches of territory, of neighborhoods where religious law is applied. This is an occupation. Sure, there are no armored vehicles, no soldiers, but it’s still an occupation, and it weighs on the inhabitants.”

Le Pen, the daughter of the National Front’s founder—who was himself expelled from the party in August—was facing a fine of about $50,000 and a sentence of up to a year in prison.

Lawyers for the government argued that she was exercising her right to free speech, and that she wasn’t only speaking of all Muslims in France, just some of them. Clearly, the judges agreed with that reasoning.

After her acquittal was handed down, Le Pen gloated on Twitter.

“Five years of aspersions, one acquittal,” she wrote. “And now how many slanderers will apologize?”

Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.