European politicians have paved the way for French far-right leader Marine Le Pen to lose her parliamentary immunity over her tweeting of images of atrocities by the so-called Islamic State militant group.
French prosecutors opened an investigation in December 2015 into the graphic series of tweets by Ms Le Pen, which included a photo of the decapitated body of US reporter James Foley.
The legal committee of the European Parliament this evening backed a request by the prosecutors for Ms Le Pen's immunity as a member of the EU's only elected assembly to be lifted, officials told AFP.
The European Parliament as a whole must now vote on Thursday on the issue, but committee decisions are generally followed by the assembly.
Ms Le Pen has so far refused to attend a police interview over the investigation by police in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, citing her status as an MEP.
Her head of cabinet has however been placed under formal investigation for "the dissemination of violent images".
The images were tweeted with the caption "This is Daesh" (an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group) and showed Mr Foley's bloodied body with his decapitated head on his torso, a man on fire in a cage, and a victim being driven over by a tank.
Mr Foley, a freelance journalist, was captured in Syria in 2012 and beheaded in August 2014.
Ms Le Pen, who has over 830,000 Twitter followers, addressed the tweets to BFM TV journalist Jean-Jacques Bourdin, whom she accused of likening her party to the jihadist group.
Mr Foley's bereaved parents John and Diane said they wanted the images removed immediately, accusing Ms Le Pen in a statement of using the "shamefully uncensored" image to her own political ends.
