While the National Rally (RN) has never been so influential in France and Brussels, Marine Le Pen and 26 other people must answer for “ embezzlement of European funds », during a trial which could decide the presidential ambition of the leader of the far-right party.
Marine Le Pen hopes in 2027 to be able to enter the presidential race for a fourth time. Unless the courts decide otherwise.
From this Monday, September 30, for two months and after ten years of investigations, the head of the RN must be judged for “ embezzlement of European funds “. She risks up to ten years in prison, a fine of one million euros, and a sentence of ineligibility of up to five years.
« Marine [Le Pen] is combative, she will be very present at the trial, she wants to set the record straight », explain in the newspaper Mediapart lawyer Alexandre Varaut, elected to the European Parliament in June 2024 and ensuring communication for the RN on this sensitive issue.
The magistrates suspect the far-right party of having, “ in a concerted and deliberate manner », set up between 2004 and 2016 a “ diversion system » envelopes allocated by the European Union (EU) to each MEP to pay their parliamentary assistants.
The latter would in reality have worked entirely or partially for the party, allowing it substantial salary savings, at a time when the RN was cruelly lacking in liquidity. The European Parliament, which became a civil party in the case, estimated its damage at 6.8 million euros.
In total, eleven MEPs on party lists, twelve individuals having been their parliamentary assistants, as well as four collaborators, who must be judged.
Among the defendants are the mayor of Perpignan Louis Aliot, the former number 2 of the movement Bruno Gollnisch, the deputy Julien Odoul and the MEP Nicolas Bay, member of the group of European Conservatives and Reformists (CRE) who was elected in June last on the Reconquest list.
Ten years of investigations
The affair broke out in March 2015, when the president of the European Parliament at the time, the German social democrat Martin Schulz, reported a possible embezzlement of funds to the French authorities. A few days earlier, the far-right party had published an organizational chart of its management in which appear several assistants supposed to work in Strasbourg.
Since then, Marine Le Pen has cried conspiracy. “ We are completely innocent […] This case was launched for political reasons by [Martin] Schulz », she explained on France Inter in 2018.
« Marine le Pen is not guilty of anything, it is once again a diversionary maneuver to try to sully the National Rally, our voters know this well», emphasized again on September 26 on France Info MEP Julien Sanchez.
However, documents and testimonies have accumulated over the years.
« I am telling you that you will have the choice to recruit an assistant yourself and that the rest of your envelope will be made available to the movement. “, for example, would have explained the head of the RN during a meeting of the party’s new MEPs, on June 4, 2014, underlines Release.
The newspaper recalls that more than 2,500 documents were provided in the investigation file.
Two cases of parliamentary assistants for whom false proof of work was allegedly produced have again been revealed by the media in recent weeks. Among them, Jordan Bardella, president of the new Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament and collaborator in 2015 of MEP Jean-François Jalkh.
Always according to Releasefake diaries and hand-annotated press reviews would have been made in retrospect to prove the activity of Jordan Bardella, who was never heard by the courts in the case of the RN parliamentary assistants.
The president of the movement quickly denounced the accusations ofReleasedescribed as “lying».
The long weeks of hearings that lie ahead will nevertheless be painful for the far-right party, even though the 143 deputies of the RN and their allies hold in their hands the fate of the government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier, which they are capable of bringing down at any time.
Unless the audiences once again allow the movement to claim itself as “ anti-system ».
