Fictitious jobs: Marine Le Pen risks prison and ineligibility

She was at the “center” of an “organized system” aimed at making the European Parliament the “cash cow” of the National Rally (RN, French far-right party): Wednesday in Paris, the prosecution requested a sentence 5 years in prison, including 2 years on convertible farms, 300,000 euros fine and 5 years of ineligibility against Marine Le Pen.

This trial of the affair of the fictitious jobs of RN parliamentary assistants, which opened at the end of September, could therefore threaten the presidential ambitions of its leader in the next elections, in 2027.

“We are here in a judicial forum and the law applies to everyone,” insisted prosecutor Nicolas Barret, asking that this sentence apply from the moment of conviction, including if Marine Le Pen chose to appeal, considering that she would not be accountable for your political “ambitions”.

Such a sentence “would prohibit the defendants from running in future local or national elections,” said the prosecutor in front of Marine Le Pen, seated in the front row of the 24 other defendants – party executives, ex-MEPs and former parliamentary assistants.

“I think that the desire of the prosecution is to deprive the French of the ability to vote for those they want” and to “ruin the party”, Marine Le Pen reacted to journalists as she left the audience, while She also faces the threat of having to pay a fine of 300,000 euros.

The prosecution depicted in its indictment on Wednesday an “organized system” of misappropriation of public funds to the detriment of the European Parliament, with “artificial contracts” of parliamentary assistants in order to “save” money for the party.

“We are not here today because of relentlessness”, nor because of a denunciation “from the European Parliament”, but at the end of “a long judicial investigation”, declared from the outset at the beginning of indictment one of the two representatives of the prosecution, Louise Neyton.

“You will make your decision in view of the documents in the file”, and after “six weeks of hearing” and “particularly extensive debates”, continued the magistrate in a full courtroom.

In turn, throughout their requisitions, the two prosecutors detailed on Wednesday the architecture of a “system” which, according to them, was put in place at the National Front (subsequently National Rally) between 2004 and 2016 , consisting of hiring “fictitious” European parliamentary assistants who actually worked for the party.

At the time, “the party was in a particularly tense financial situation. Everything that can contribute to reducing burdens will be used systematically”, whether “legal or not”, affirmed Louise Neyton, while Marine Le Pen shakes her head vigorously “no”.

The European Parliament estimated its financial damage at 4.5 million euros, but only claimed 3.4 million (a part having been reimbursed).