The trial of Marine Le Pen, 24 other people and the National Rally, suspected of having embezzled funds from the European Parliament to pay party employees, opens Monday September 30 before the Paris criminal court, a case with high stakes policies for the leader of the far right.
Was there a “system”, for years at the National Rally, to pay party employees with money from Europe? Marine Le Pen, 24 other people and the RN are on trial from Monday September 30, a trial with heavy political stakes for the leader of the far right.
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.
The RN has been denouncing “relentlessness” for years
The case began in 2015 with a report from the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz and concerns numerous parliamentary attaché contracts over a period of more than 10 years (2004-2016). For the prosecution, these “assistants”, hard pressed to describe their tasksonly had the title. Some had never even met their official employer or set foot in Parliament and, according to the prosecution, only worked for the party – which is prohibited under European regulations.
These include Jean-Marie Le Pen’s historic bodyguard, Thierry Légier, his secretary, Marine Le Pen’s chief of staff, Catherine Griset, and even the party’s graphic designer…
“Marine, would it be possible for me to come to Strasbourg tomorrow to see how a session is going” in Parliament, “and to meet Mylène Troszczynski to whom I am attached?”, wrote Julien Odoul in February 2015, four months after the start of his contract as a parliamentary assistant to Ms. Troszczynski. “Yes of course,” replied Marine Le Pen.
The defendants, tried in particular for embezzlement of public funds or complicity in this offense, face a maximum of ten years of imprisonment and a fine of one million euros, and above all a penalty of ineligibility of ten years likely to hinder the Marine Le Pen’s presidential ambitions for 2027.
Most of the defendants contest as a whole, citing a “mutualization” of the work of parliamentary assistants. The RN has been denouncing for years “relentlessness”, even a “political” procedure.
“Incomprehension”
“We have nothing to reproach ourselves for in this affair,” Marine Le Pen, 56, declared in Le Parisien in mid-September, speaking of “incomprehension between the legal world and the political world” and saying she wanted to explain at the bar that parliamentary assistants are “not employees of the European Parliament” and are “obviously intended, for a certain number of them, to engage in politics”.
His lawyer, Rodolphe Bosselut, did not wish to speak before the trial, scheduled for three half-days a week until November 27. “The FN-RN has always been very critical of European institutions; it does not like Europe. The only thing they like is the money of the European Union,” says Patrick Maisonneuve , lawyer of the European Parliament, civil party.
The institution estimated its financial damage at three million euros. She will only claim two million, one million having already been reimbursed (which is not an admission of guilt, assured the RN). The “centralized system”, validated by the founder of the FN Jean-Marie Le Pen then his daughter according to the accusation, would have accelerated with the entry into Parliament in 2014 of 23 FN MEPs (compared to three previously).
Jean-Marie Le Pen, 96 years old, will not appear, an expertise having determined that he was not “in condition” to be judged for health reasons, like former MEP Jean-François Jalkh.
Among the compromising elements are contracts sometimes lasting a day to empty the envelopes down to the last penny, or even this message from party treasurer Wallerand de Saint-Just warning of the catastrophic state of finances: “we will not get out of this only if we make significant savings thanks to the European Parliament.
Several people also mention a meeting in Brussels in 2014 where Marine Le Pen explained to MEPs that they “did not need more than one dedicated assistant”, and should “give a delegation to hire” the others. A “fictitious employment” logic even if it was not explicitly stated, commented one of the participants.
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