understand everything at stake in the trial which threatens the political future of Marine Le Pen

In the European Parliament, Marine Le Pen was at the « centre » of a “organized system” of embezzlement of public money, estimated the prosecution, Wednesday November 13, in a very severe indictment, almost a month and a half after the opening of the trial of the parliamentary assistants of MEPs from the National Front (FN).

Twenty-five people, including the head of the deputies of the National Rally (RN, heir to the FN), have been on trial since September 30 before the Paris criminal court. They are suspected of having set up, between 2004 and 2016, a “diversion system” money paid by the European Union (EU) intended for the hiring of parliamentary collaborators, in order to finance the political activities of the far-right party. Damage estimated at nearly 7 million euros by the European Parliament.

In their indictment, the prosecutors demanded five years in prison against Marine Le Pen, including two years in prison which could be adjusted, five years of ineligibility, as well as a fine of 300,000 euros. The prosecution requested that the ineligibility sentence be accompanied by a provisional execution, meaning that it would apply immediately upon conviction, including upon appeal.

The trial is scheduled to continue until November 27, with defense arguments Monday, November 18, and a decision is expected in early 2025.

How did the affair start in the European Parliament?

On January 20, 2014, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) received an anonymous report on a “possible fraud”. This letter warns of cases of“alleged fictitious jobs”from the FN and its president at the time, Marine Le Pen, who sat in the European Parliament from 2004 to 2017.

The European anti-fraud body opens an administrative investigation, and scrutinizes the activities of two close to Marine Le Pen: Catherine Griset, her chief of staff, and Thierry Légier, her bodyguard, both also presented as her parliamentary assistants. The investigation reveals that Catherine Griset, now MEP, “would have only spent 740 minutes, or about twelve hours” in the European Parliament, when she was supposed to be an assistant there, between October 2014 and August 2015. The report also describes “fictitious” the employment of Thierry Légier.

In March 2015, the affair took on greater proportions. The President of Parliament, Martin Schulz, refers possible irregularities concerning the salaries paid to other employees to OLAF. He reported these facts to the French Ministry of Justice, after noting that twenty parliamentary assistants also appeared in the FN organization chart; some even occupying key positions with Marine Le Pen and the former honorary president of the party, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Between 2004 and 2016, the European Parliament assessed the damage from this ” system “ at 6.8 million euros. In 2017, he demanded reimbursement from Marine Le Pen of nearly 340,000 euros, a sum corresponding to the salaries of Catherine Griset and Thierry Légier. Faced with the leader's refusal to pay it, Parliament's financial services took several tens of thousands of euros from her elected compensation before she left Brussels in 2017. Threatened with an enforceable recovery decision, Marine Le Pen finally repays 330,000 euros in July 2023. Her lawyer, Rodolphe Bosselut, specifies that this “in no way constitutes an explicit or implicit recognition of the claims of the European Parliament”.

What did the French investigation reveal?

After Martin Schulz's report, French justice opened a preliminary investigation in March 2015 for breach of trust, considering that these facts could be similar to illegal party financing. Entrusted to the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses, the investigations led to a series of searches, notably at the FN headquarters. Investigators are collecting overwhelming testimonies and documents. Like the letter sent by the former party treasurer, Wallerand de Saint-Just, to Marine Le Pen, dated June 2014, in which he wrote: “We will only get out of this if we make significant savings thanks to the European Parliament. »

A judicial investigation was opened in December 2016 into acts of “breach of trust”, “concealment of breach of trust”, “organized gang fraud”, “forgery and use of forgery” and “concealed work”. According to a summary report, “the study of the documents discovered (…) revealed the establishment of a fraudulent system, involving several FN executives.

More than twenty indictments have been issued, including that of Marine Le Pen in 2017 for “breach of trust” and “complicity in breach of trust”. This indictment was aggravated a year later in “embezzlement of public funds”.

In December 2023, at the end of a nine-year investigation, the investigating judges requested the referral to justice of the FN and twenty-seven leaders or employees. Parliamentary assistants “are not simple officials of the European Parliament, but have a technical and political role”defended the RN after this decision. And to add that they have “perfectly the right, moreover, to engage in militant activities”.

What does Marine Le Pen risk?

The head of RN deputies is on trial for embezzlement of public funds and complicity, acts punishable by up to ten years of imprisonment, a fine of 1 million euros and five years of ineligibility. In their indictment, on November 13, the prosecutors requested five years in prison, including two adjustable prison terms, a fine of 300,000 euros, as well as a five-year ineligibility sentence accompanied by provisional execution, which would constitute a major obstacle for the 2027 presidential election.

The prosecution considered that Marine Le Pen played a “central role” in this affair by hiring four fictitious assistants herself, and by being “accomplice by instigation” as president at the time of the FN. This “organized system” aimed to “save money” money to the far-right party by using the monthly envelopes of MEPs in defiance of democratic rules, argued the public prosecutor.

“I think that the desire of the prosecution is to deprive the French of the ability to vote for those they want” and of “ruin the party”, declared Marine Le Pen at the end of the requisitions. And to ensure: “Their only objective is to prevent me from being my camp’s presidential candidate. You have to be deaf and blind not to see it. »

Marine Le Pen's entourage, however, wants to be confident and cites in particular a “Bayrou jurisprudence” in reference to the acquittal in February 2024 of the boss of the MoDem in a similar case. François Bayrou was suspected of having been the “primary decision maker” of a “fraudulent system” of embezzlement of European funds, between 2005 and 2017, by using Parliament's remuneration to assistants who actually worked for the MoDem. He was released “for the benefit of the doubt” by the Paris criminal court. The prosecution appealed this decision. Eight people, including five former MEPs, as well as the MoDem, were however sentenced to suspended prison sentences and ineligibility.

What do the other defendants risk?

In addition to Marine Le Pen, and the RN, tried as a legal entity, several members or former members of the RN are among the defendants:

• Eleven MEPs elected under the FN banner including the mayor of Perpignan, Louis Aliot, the former interim president of the RN Jean-François Jalkh, the MEP Nicolas Bay, and the former number two of the party, Bruno Gollnisch. Also implicated in this affair, the former MEP and leader of the FN, Jean-Marie Le Pen, 96 years old, and the former frontist MEP Jean-François Jalkh, 67 years old, did not appear due to their state of health.
• Twelve people presented as parliamentary assistants, including Thierry Légier, Catherine Griset, as well as current RN deputies Timothée Houssin and Julien Odoul, and Yann Le Pen, the sister of Marine Le Pen.
• Four party collaborators, including Wallerand de Saint-Just.

The public prosecutor called for the conviction of all the defendants. In particular, she requested eighteen months in prison, including six months, with three years of ineligibility, against Louis Aliot and Nicolas Bay; ten months suspended sentence and one year of ineligibility against Julien Odoul and Timothée Houssin; eighteen months suspended sentence and two years of ineligibility against Catherine Griset and Yann Le Pen. Against the RN, prosecutors requested 4.3 million euros, 2.3 million of which were suspended, or 2 million to be paid immediately.

Note that the current president of the RN, Jordan Bardella, was never heard as part of the investigation even though he benefited from a four-month assistant contract with Jean-François Jalkh during the period scrutinized during the legal proceedings. The newspaper Liberation revealed in September that the party, aided by the leader of the RN, would have falsified documents a posteriori to serve as proof of the work carried out by Jordan Bardella in Parliament. An accusation contested by the latter.