France, trial begins for Le Pen. Red robes on the attack and risk of ineligibility –

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen will be in the dock from tomorrow for an alleged diversion of 6.8 million euros from the European Parliament to finance her political party. A trial that could call into question his candidacy for the Elysée for the fourth time in 2027. The current head of the far-right parliamentarians in the National Assembly is accused, together with 26 other people, of having used money from the European Parliament between 2004 and 2016. A crime for which she could be sentenced to ten years in prison, a fine of one million euros and ten years of ineligibility, the latter factor which would put her ambition of becoming the first female president in France.

Le Pen denies the accusation and considers herself persecuted by justice. Her entourage has ensured that the RN leader will appear regularly in court and will not hide behind her lawyers, despite the fact that the trial coincides with a charged political situation, with the first steps of the new government led by Michel Barnier, whose survival depends on from the protection of the far right.

Ten years of investigations and almost 2,500 pieces of evidence have brought to light what the Prosecutor’s Office defined as “a conspiracy to attribute a good part of the expenses of the National Front, later renamed Rassemblement national, to the European Parliament”. The money that the European Parliament gives to each MP to pay their parliamentary assistants would have been used to remunerate party employees, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, which has accumulated testimonies, internal messages and other evidence to support the accusation. At the head of this conspiracy was, at first, Jean-Marie Le Pen, 96 years old, a member of the European Parliament for more than 30 years. Although the Prosecutor’s Office believes that the diversion of funds is old, it has gained greater strength since 2014, when the FN won the French European elections and appointed 24 parliamentarians in Brussels and Strasbourg, who had 23,000 euros a month each to hire parliamentary assistants. In addition to Le Pen, eleven former MEPs are accused, including the current mayor of Perpignan, Louis Aliot, the leader’s former partner, the party’s former number two, Bruno Gollnisch, and Nicolas Bay. Together with them, the defendants also include twelve parliamentary assistants and four party collaborators, as well as the party itself as a legal entity. The trial will last seven weeks and has many points in common with the trial last February of Francois Bayrou, a centrist ally of President Emmanuel Macron, who was acquitted due to insufficient evidence.