Was there a “system”, for years at the National Rally, to pay party employees with money from Europe? RN leader Marine Le Pen is on trial from Monday until November 27 alongside 24 other people and her party. Historical executives, bodyguards, secretaries, accountants, they are suspected of embezzlement of public funds, complicity and concealment of public funds. Concretely, the courts accuse them of having used European funds to pay party executives and small hands between 2004 and 2016. Facts that the RN and Marine Le Pen dispute. This is a trial with heavy political stakes for the leader of the far right.
Who are the defendants?
Nine former MEPs from the National Front (renamed RN) will have to explain themselves at the bar, including Marine Le Pen – who should be present at most of the hearings – Louis Aliot, now vice-president of the RN, the former number 2 of the party Bruno Gollnisch, or the deputy and spokesperson for the RN Julien Odoul. Alongside them, 12 people who were their parliamentary assistants and four party collaborators.
What are the charges?
Among the most notable elements, there is the case of the bodyguard of Jean-Marie then Marine Le Pen who multiplied the parliamentary assistant contracts. There is also this meeting of June 4, 2014, in Brussels during which, according to several testimonies, Marine Le Pen warned the newly elected MEPs that they will have to let their parliamentary assistants work for the party.
There are also uplifting emails. “What Marine is asking us is equivalent to signing for fictitious jobs”an MEP is alarmed. “I believe that Marine knows all of this”replied the treasurer. He who, faced with the party’s financial losses, had warned the president, again by email: “We will only get out of this if we make significant savings thanks to the European Parliament.” The European Parliament estimates its damage at more than six million euros, and has become a civil party in this trial.
What political impact?
Marine Le Pen will be present from Monday afternoon. In his agenda, the trial was essential. Apart from major events in the National Assembly, like Tuesday with the general policy declaration, she will go to the hearings. A question of image, that of “leader in the middle of his mistreated troops” described one of his lieutenants to France Inter. A leader who intends to plead the freedom for an MEP to use his assistant as he sees fit.
This defense is common to all defendants, like the former elected official
Bruno Gollnisch. He thus admits to having sometimes put his collaborator at the time at the service of Jean-Marie Le Pen. “Politics is a team sport. We had a parliamentary secretariat at the Château de Montretout [fief des Le Pen, NDLR]and we pooled our resources. There is no money from the European Parliament; there is money from Europe, which has been taken from European citizens, starting with those who vote for the national rally. We used this money perfectly for its intended purpose.”
The party should hammer home an argument: there was no personal enrichment. An argument addressed as much to judges as to their voters.
What are the penalties incurred?
If we look at the Penal Code, the penalty incurred for the patron of the National Rally is ten years in prison and a million euros fine. But what she fears most is the additional penalty of ineligibility, up to five years.
It can be pronounced by the judges with suspended sentence, firm or even more severe, with provisional execution. That is to say, it is then effective immediately. That is, before the presidential election of 2027. But within the party, no one seems to believe that a judge takes responsibility for condemning Marine Le Pen on penalty of ineligibility.
