27 people, including Marine Le Pen, will appear from Monday before the Paris criminal court for the so-called RN parliamentary assistants case. A case of fictitious jobs in the European Parliament.
There will be 27 on the dock, including a large number of executives from the National Rally, starting with Marine Le Pen, Louis Alliot, Bruno Gollnisch and Jean-Marie Le Pen.
This Monday, September 30, and until November 27, the Paris Criminal Court is judging the case of the parliamentary assistants of the Frontist party, a case of suspicion of fictitious jobs aimed at diverting money from the European Parliament for the benefit of the party.
· What do we blame the defendants for?
On March 9, 2015, French justice received an anonymous report from the European Parliament, which had previously been alerted. The 20 National Front parliamentary assistants recruited to assist MEPs also hold official positions within the party. The rule of the institution is however clear, the envelopes allocated by Strasbourg to pay the assistants of MEPs cannot finance a contract signed with the party.
The first investigations then those carried out as part of a judicial investigation opened on December 15, 2016 for in particular “breach of trust”, “fraud”, “forgery and use of forgeries” or “concealed work” will establish, according to the order of referral, that a mechanism had been put in place to finance the party’s hiring with money from the European Parliament.
“The judges describe a system which has been centralized”, specifies Me Maisonneuve, the lawyer for the European Parliament.
We talk, a minimaof nearly 3 million euros which would have been embezzled between 2004 and 2016. Money taken from the envelopes of 21,000 euros per month allocated by Strasbourg to each MP to pay employees who worked for the National Front in France.
For example, an employee hired as a parliamentary assistant was, in fact, the private secretary of Jean-Marie Le Pen. Another, paid with the European Parliament envelope allocated to Marine Le Pen, was in reality the vast majority of the time in Nanterre, as confirmed by the time clock records at party headquarters.
· Who are the defendants?
There are 27 of them, in addition to the National Front itself, which has since become the National Rally, to be referred to the criminal court. Among them 14 former parliamentary assistants, but above all the leaders of the far-right party: Wallerand De Saint-Just, ex-treasurer, Bruno Gollnisch, Marie-Christine Arnautu, Louis Aliot, all ex-vice-president of the party, as well as Nicolas Bay, secretary general of the party between 2014 and 2017, the deputy and spokesperson for the RN Julien Odoul but also the former president of the National Front Jean-Marie Le Pen. The latter is not expected to attend his trial due to his state of health.
Dismissed for “embezzlement of public funds” and “complicity in embezzlement”, the former party executives face 10 years of imprisonment and 5 years of ineligibility.
· A central role for Marine Le Pen?
Marine Le Pen, MEP between 2004 and 2017 and who took over as leader of the party in 2011, is also being prosecuted. Indicted in June 2017, she was also dismissed for “embezzlement of public funds”. The magistrates consider that the current MP could not have failed to know that the system had been put in place and would even be at the origin of this mechanism aimed at embezzlement of public funds.
They rely in particular on an email found during a search of the party’s headquarters, signed in 2014, after the European elections. For the first time, the National Front came first in a national election, obtaining 24 seats. The treasurer alerted Marine Le Pen, then president of the party, that “in the years to come and in all cases, we will only get through this if we make significant savings thanks to the European Parliament and if we obtain additional payments “. Testimonies collected during the investigation also noted that she had asked MEPs to hire only one parliamentary assistant, “the rest of the budget would be for the National Front”.
An exchange between former MEP Jean-Luc Schaffhauser and Wallerand De Saint-Just was also found during a search. The elected official is moved by the practice demanded by Marine Le Pen, during a constituent meeting of the parliamentary group, who wants “that we sign for fictitious jobs… and it is the deputy who is criminally responsible on its funds even if the party is the beneficiary”. The treasurer responds laconicly: “I believe that Marine (Le Pen) knows all that..”
· What is the defense of the National Rally?
“We will therefore go before the court to say that we have not committed any offense (…) I am very sure of our innocence”, repeated Marine Le Pen in La Tribune Sunday at the beginning of September, denouncing a “deeply unfair” procedure.
In those around her, she is described as “combative”, “she did perfectly legal things”. Then head of the RN group in the European Parliament in 2014, “Marine Le Pen made two important decisions: advising to hire people from the party, sympathizers, activists or even better party employees, to develop them and indicate that she had a right of veto” over these recruitments, notes Alexandre Varaut, MEP.
“Certain deputies thought it was their duty to voters not only to do legislative work, but also to do work on the ground in France,” explains the elected official.
For the party, “Parliament is trying to muzzle us”. “Contrary to what the European Parliament believes, our deputies and our collaborators are not employees of the Parliament. The deputies are elected by the French, the collaborators because we hired them under a private law contract , between the deputies and them, not by the will of the European Parliament”, continues Alexandre Varaut.
“We are not here to serve Parliament but to replace its current leaders. We let the parties organize themselves as they want, the deputies must be able to work as they see fit. It is important that the prosecutors do not dictate not the way in which MPs should organize their work, it is the separation of powers”, concludes the MEP.
· Jordan Bardella caught up in the affair?
As this resounding trial approaches, the daily Libération revealed that the current president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, would have participated in the preparation of false documents on his work when he was parliamentary assistant to MEP Jean-François Jalkh in 2015. He would thus have developed fictitious and backdated documents supposed to testify to the tasks on behalf of the elected official that he would not have actually carried out. These included outdated press reviews and false agendas.
Jordan Bardella worked “without any infraction or irregularity, both with regard to the regulations of the European Parliament and French law”, retorted the RN in a press release on Monday. “Your accusations are false and defamatory”, also reacted the president of the RN on X, evoking a “gross attempt at destabilization” as the trial approaches.
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