French far-right leader Marine Le Pen goes on trial for allegedly misusing EU funds
The trial of the National Rally (RN), Marine Le Pen and 24 other party figures suspected of embezzlement of European funds opened Monday before the Paris criminal court, where the far-right leader risks a prison sentence. ineligibility.
Scheduled until November 27, this trial with heavy political stakes begins on the eve of the opening of the parliamentary session in the National Assembly, where the RN intends to weigh in with its 142 deputies, allies included, in a role of ” arbitrator” against the government of Michel Barnier.
The defendants – former MEPs like Marine Le Pen, ex-parliamentary assistants and party employees – are being prosecuted for embezzlement of public funds, complicity and concealment of public funds. They risk up to 10 years in prison, a fine of one million euros and five years of ineligibility.
The files of Jean-Marie Le Pen, 96 years old, and Jean-François Jalkh, also prosecuted but who will not appear at trial for health reasons, have been separated.
Arriving shortly before 1:30 p.m., Marine Le Pen displayed her serenity.
“I approach this trial with a lot of serenity and a lot of arguments to develop to defend the parliamentary freedom at issue in this case, to demonstrate that we have not violated any political rule,” she told journalists.
Justice accuses the defendants of having, between 2004 and 2016, paid employees of the National Front – renamed National Rally in 2018 – with the envelopes allocated by Brussels to each MEP for the salary of parliamentary assistants.
€3.5 MILLION IN DAMAGE
The European Parliament estimates the damage at 3.5 million euros, said one of the institution’s lawyers, Patrick Maisonneuve.
Accusations rejected by the RN and its ex-president Marine Le Pen, qualified for the second round of the presidential election in 2017 then in 2022 but beaten each time by Emmanuel Macron.
The National Rally, as a legal entity, will have to answer for complicity and concealment of embezzlement of public funds over the period in question.
“Obviously, it will become a subject of communication when we would prefer to talk about the problems and the future of the French,” regrets RN deputy Laurent Jacobelli.
“Marine Le Pen is calm, she knows the file well and ultimately, she knows that what we are accused of is a difference in conception between the European Parliament and the French parties of what a collaborator is,” a- he told Reuters in the corridors of the National Assembly.
The left-wing opposition united within the New Popular Front (NFP) hopes to take advantage of this delicate pass to regain control after having been excluded from government negotiations, despite its first place in the second round of the early legislative elections in July.
“The judicial timetable will prevent Marine Le Pen from accelerating the upheaval that she wants but which she really does not want,” Green MP Pouria Amirshahi told Reuters. “At the NFP, we must demonstrate that there is cohesion, coherence and willingness to govern.”
The RN is also the subject of a preliminary investigation opened in July by the Paris prosecutor’s office for alleged illegal financing of Marine Le Pen’s presidential campaign in 2022.
(Reporting by Juliette Jabkhiro and Elizabeth Pineau, edited by Sophie Louet and Kate Entringer)
