Marine Le Pen will know on March 31, 2025 if she is ineligible after the RN assistant affair

JUSTICE – See you next year. The trial for suspicion of fictitious employment of European parliamentary assistants of the National Rally and Marine Le Pen ended this Wednesday, November 27, and the court will deliver its judgment on March 31 at 10 a.m., the president announced before lifting the audience.

“These two months of judicial privacy, as the defense lawyer said, end today. Many things have been said. The court will now put the case under advisement and will deliver its judgment on March 31 at 10 a.m.announced President Bénédicte de Perthuis.

Marine Le Pen did not wish to say “last words” at the bar of the court. But to the press, leaving the courtroom, she said: “See you in four months”. “The time given by the court before its deliberations is quite revealing of the numerous legal issues that the court will have to decide”et “shows that this matter is much less simple than some people wanted to think. I still have hope that we will be heard”added the leader of the National Rally, as you can see below.

The courtroom of the Paris Criminal Court was full this Wednesday to hear the pleadings of his lawyer, Me Rodolphe Bosselut. In the first row of defendants, the three-time presidential candidate sits, face tense, between number 2 of the RN Louis Aliot and the ex-treasurer of the party Wallerand de Saint-Just.

“These requisitions are a weapon of mass destruction of the democratic game”

Before “pleading for release”declared Me Bosselut at the start of three hours of pleading which he had announced “long and boring”he tackled what, beyond a possible conviction, is the main issue for his client: ineligibility with provisional execution, which would apply immediately – which the prosecution requested, with a sentence of five years in prison, two of which are subject to change, and a fine of 300,000 euros.

This request for immediate ineligibility suddenly made the possibility that Marine Le Pen would not be able to run in 2027 very real, and took everyone by surprise, provoking criticism in her political camp and beyond.

“These requisitions are a weapon of mass destruction of the democratic game”thundered Me Bosselut. “It doesn’t just concern Marine Le Pen, it concerns at least 13 million voters or even the entire electorate, or even the sincerity of the vote, it’s not nothing”he insisted.

Beyond “citizen emotion”you need a “legal emotion”. In this file, “provisional execution would have disproportionate legal consequences”he said. “Irremediable, definitive”. This “severity” parquet is “unjustified, gratuitous”a “demand for political elimination”. Elle “casts doubt on the very intentions of the judicial institution”accused Mr. Bosselut.

The day after the requisitions of which she had denounced « violence » et “excess”Marine Le Pen summarized: “It’s my political death that people are calling for”.

A good part of the 24 other defendants made the trip

The prosecution had justified it by the risk of “reiteration” embezzlement of public funds, which had “repeated” for 12 years (between 2004 and 2016) and had not “interrupted” only because of the report from the European Parliament, which estimated its financial damage at 4.5 million euros.

As for the defendants who denied outright the existence of a ” system “ set up to pay parliamentary assistants “fictitious” with European money, they did not demonstrate during the hearing any “questioning”had accused the prosecution. “We are not here in a political forum, but a judicial one, and the law, the law applies to everyone”.

Me Rodolphe Bosselut began his argument by talking about his client. A good part of the 24 other defendants made the trip and sat behind the leader of the far right.

“She came almost every day with the desire to explain herself, to convince you of her total good faith”. Not « naïve » about what she was risking, but with the « force » of “those who know they are innocent”argued his lawyer. “She answered all the questions seriously and sincerely, did not evade any of them, she remained on the stand for several hours… We can blame her for many things but not for having contempt for the court or the institution judicial as the prosecution said”he argued. “ Is there any arrogance in defending oneself? »

In this folder full of « passion »of « pression » and” challenges “ – “God knows there are” – Me Bosselut asks the court to “return to the law”. “Beyond biases, preconceived ideas”he said. “ What I would like to convince the court of is that the parliamentary practice in the European Parliament from 2004 to 2016 accused of my client and the other defendants was not only banal, innocuous, because shared by all European parties, but free from any intention fraudulent because it is considered admitted”he added.

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