At the trial of FN parliamentary assistants, Marine Le Pen declines her political defense

Marine Le Pen was champing at the bit for seven long hours, Wednesday October 2, before being able to say what was on her heart, a little before 9 p.m. The president of the court, Bénédicte de Perthuis, has a timetable, and sticks to it.

It was a question for the former president of the National Rally (RN, National Front at the time of the events, FN) to give “some elements of context” at the trial of the assistants of the European Parliament which opened Monday in Paris. The FN is accused of having taken advantage of the European budget to “feed” the party.

The court projected tables which demonstrate, for the prosecution, that the 27 defendants embezzled 3,213,000 euros from 2004 to 2016. But the case is complex, and the RN, a legal entity, so to speak, is also being prosecuted for “complicity and concealment of embezzlement of public funds”. He must therefore also answer for the contracts of parliamentary assistants which have not been individually pursued: the bill therefore amounts to 4,503,000 euros. Shock of the lawyers who had missed these decisive lines of the indictment.

Another disappointment is that the prevention period, the one during which the facts are prosecuted, could be extended: the prosecution will take new requisitions. To the great dismay of Marine Le Pen: “We were questioned about a specific prevention by the investigating judge, said the MP, and today we are told that it will perhaps be five years before or five years after! » She also wanted to indicate that there was in the file “a lot of preconceived ideas, which were fabricated by the civil party [le Parlement européen]. We tried to enter a tunnel from which we cannot escape”.

The administration “makes mistakes”

The president of the RN ensures that “the leadership of the European Parliament is not neutral, it is political”. Moreover, the administration “we have the impression that she is surrounded by white, but she makes mistakes like all administrations”for example by losing files. She then estimates “that it would be unfortunate not to admit that we are the bête noire of the European Parliament: the idea that there could be deputies who are opposed to this construction of the European Union is something something that is disturbing, even though we are elected for that”.

Follows a severe indictment against the investigators of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), at the origin of the investigation, which would have “impulsed his ideas in Parliament, which impelled them in the judicial investigation”. The Office would have waited until June 2014, when the RN European deputies increased from 3 to 24, to launch an investigation into the party, before, in the middle of July of the following year, suspending the salary of all the assistants of the party. FN – only to suspend six.

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