UAn overwhelming burden weighs on the shoulders of the three judges of the 11th criminal chamber of the Paris court: will Marine Le Pen be able to run in the 2027 presidential election? Part of the answer is in their hands, after two months of the trial of the Frontist deputies and their assistants in the European Parliament, accused of having in reality worked for the party and of having thus embezzled 4.5 million euros between 2004 and 2016.
The prosecution demanded, on November 13, against the former president of the National Rally (RN) a sentence of ineligibility of five years with provisional execution, that is to say applicable immediately, without waiting for the inevitable appeal trial. nor the cassation. The two prosecutors have since been insulted and several petitions have been launched against a “unjust conviction”one of them has already collected more than 25,000 signatures.
Marine Le Pen, her 24 co-defendants and the RN, a legal entity – so to speak – will not be sentenced before the spring of 2025. Their conviction, however, leaves little doubt: the defense lawyers all plead the relax, but Marine Le Pen has no illusions. “I have the impression that on many occasions your opinion was already made up”the three-time presidential candidate told the court on November 5. The hearing, which she largely followed, was in fact every day, and against the evidence, peppered with clumsy denials or blatant lies.
“Organized nature” of the diversions
The written evidence and emails gathered by almost ten years of investigation clearly establish, as the prosecution pointed out, “organized, optimized and systematic character” embezzlements, for one hundred and forty-six months, which were only interrupted by the Brussels investigation, “at a time when the mechanism was going to give all its power with the 24 new deputies” elected to the 2014 European elections.
There are no fictitious jobs for the assistants, they actually worked, protests the defense. Certainly, but for the party. They were not replaced in the National Front when they became parliamentary assistants. And there is no personal enrichment of the defendants, maintains the defense. Or even: “those close to the Le Pen family”underlined the prosecutors, including Yann Maréchal, the sister of Marine Le Pen, “his faithful secretary and ambitious young people” have benefited “a completely comfortable lifestyle”. Louis Aliot, the president's former companion, received 5,000 euros per month, for part time, for three years.
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