It is a decisive trial in more than one way which opens on Monday September 30 before the Paris judicial court: for seven weeks, justice is looking into the case of the parliamentary assistants of the MEPs of the National Front (FN, now since 2018 National Rally, RN), a file of fictitious jobs and disguised financing of the party, through a mechanism by which the RN is suspected of having employed permanent members of its formation on credits allocated by the European Parliament for the employment of assistants to MEPs.
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A good number of senior executives from Marine Le Pen’s party will appear in the dock, starting with the latter. But not only that: if we note two notable absentees, Jean-Marie Le Pen and the former vice-president of the party Jean-François Jalkh – whose file has been disjointed – the list of defendants traces the history of the FN , with its historical faithful, such as the mayor of Perpignan, Louis Aliot, the former MEP Fernand Le Rachinel or the lawyer Wallerand de Saint-Just; his young hopes, like the deputy Julien Odoul; and even his “traitors”, who left him following disagreements, like Marion Maréchal, MEP Nicolas Bay or Bruno Gollnisch. All are being prosecuted for “embezzlement of public funds”, “concealment” of this crime, or even “complicity”, all charges which can lead to penalties of ineligibility, a major pitfall for a party which presents itself as at the gates of the power.
The affair broke out in 2014, when the European Anti-Fraud Office, the control body of the European Parliament, received information on possible irregularities in the contracts of FN parliamentary assistants. In February 2015, these suspicions were reinforced with the publication of an official organization chart of the Frontist party, which included sixteen European deputies and twenty parliamentary assistants with partisan responsibilities. However, the statutes of the European Parliament explicitly prohibit the funds paid to MEPs to employ assistants from being used to finance national political activity. On March 9, Martin Schulz, then President of Parliament, wrote to the French Ministry of Justice, which in turn referred the matter to the Paris Public Prosecutor.
The indictments follow one another
Searches were carried out in February 2016 at the party headquarters, at the homes of several assistants, but also within the Amboise Audit firm, headed by Nicolas Crochet, historical accountant of the FN, already implicated in another illegal financing file which concerns the Frontist party, the “Jeanne-Riwal” affair. This firm plays the role of “third party payer” for FN MEPs: it is responsible for monitoring assistants’ contracts and paying their social security contributions.
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