After its relative failure in July’s legislative elections, the National Rally (RN) begins an eventful return to office on the judicial level. Twenty-seven people, including the president of the group in the National Assembly, Marine Le Pen, have been on trial since Monday September 30 in the affair of the supposedly fictitious jobs of assistants to European deputies, which runs until November 27 before the Paris criminal court.
The defendants are suspected of having set up, between 2004 and 2016, a “diversion system” money paid by the European Union (EU) intended for the hiring of parliamentary collaborators, in order to finance the political activities of the far-right party which was then called National Front (FN). Damage estimated at around 7 million euros by the European Parliament. Under the threat of a prison sentence and ineligibility, Marine Le Pen has always contested these accusations.
How did the affair start in the European Parliament?
On January 20, 2014, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) received an anonymous report on a “possible fraud”. This letter warns of cases of“alleged fictitious jobs”from the FN and its president at the time, Marine Le Pen, who sat in the European Parliament from 2004 to 2017.
The European anti-fraud body opens an administrative investigation, and scrutinizes the activities of two close to Marine Le Pen: Catherine Griset, her chief of staff, and Thierry Légier, her bodyguard, both also presented as her parliamentary assistants. The investigation reveals that Catherine Griset, now MEP, “would have only spent 740 minutes, or about twelve hours” in the European Parliament, when she was supposed to be an assistant there, between October 2014 and August 2015. The OLAF report also describes “fictitious” the employment of Thierry Légier.
Read also | FN parliamentary assistants: a report damns Marine Le Pen
Add to your selections
In March 2015, the affair took on greater proportions. The President of Parliament, Martin Schulz, refers possible irregularities concerning the salaries paid to other employees to OLAF. He reported these facts to the French Ministry of Justice, after noting that twenty parliamentary assistants also appeared in the FN organization chart; some even occupying key positions with Marine Le Pen and the former honorary president of the party, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Between 2004 and 2016, the European Parliament assessed the damage from this ” system “ at 6.8 million euros. In 2017, he demanded reimbursement from Marine Le Pen of nearly 340,000 euros, a sum corresponding to the salaries of Catherine Griset and Thierry Légier. Faced with the leader’s refusal to pay it, Parliament’s financial services took several tens of thousands of euros from her elected compensation before she left Brussels in 2017. Threatened with an enforceable recovery decision, Marine Le Pen finally repays 330,000 euros in July 2023. Her lawyer, Rodolphe Bosselut, specifies that this “does not in any way constitute an explicit or implicit recognition of the claims of the European Parliament”.
What did the French investigation reveal?
After Martin Schulz’s report, French justice opened a preliminary investigation in March 2015 for breach of trust, considering that these facts could be similar to illegal party financing. Entrusted to the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses, the investigations led to a series of searches, notably at the FN headquarters. Investigators are collecting overwhelming testimonies and documents. Like the letter sent by the former party treasurer, Wallerand de Saint-Just, to Marine Le Pen, dated June 2014, in which he wrote: “We will only get out of this if we make significant savings thanks to the European Parliament. »
A judicial investigation was opened in December 2016 into acts of “breach of trust”, “concealment of breach of trust”, “organized gang fraud”, “forgery and use of forgery” and “concealed work”. According to a summary report, “the study of the documents discovered (…) revealed the establishment of a fraudulent system, involving several FN executives.
Read also | Parliamentary assistants: judicial investigation targets the FN
Add to your selections
More than twenty indictments have been issued, including that of Marine Le Pen in 2017 for “breach of trust” and “complicity in breach of trust”. This indictment was aggravated a year later in “embezzlement of public funds”.
In December 2023, at the end of a nine-year investigation, the investigating judges requested the referral to justice of the FN and twenty-seven leaders or employees. Parliamentary assistants “are not simple officials of the European Parliament, but have a technical and political role”defended the RN after this decision. And to add that they have “perfectly entitled, moreover, to engage in militant activities.”
Read also (2023): Article reserved for our subscribers Parliamentary assistants affair: the reasons for the dismissal of Marine Le Pen and the National Rally in correctional
Add to your selections
Who is in the dock?
In addition to the National Rally being judged as a legal entity, several members or former members of the RN are among the twenty-seven defendants:
- Eleven MEPs elected under the National Front banner, including Marine Le Pen, the mayor of Perpignan, Louis Aliot, the former interim president of the RN, Jean-François Jalkh, the MEP Nicolas Bay, and even the party’s former number two, Bruno Gollnisch.
- Twelve people presented as parliamentary assistants, including Thierry Légier, Catherine Griset, as well as current RN deputies Timothée Houssin and Julien Odoul.
- Four employees of the party, including Wallerand de Saint-Just.
Also implicated in this case, the former MEP and leader of the FN, Jean-Marie Le Pen, 96 years old, will not be present during the trial due to his state of health.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers Trial of FN parliamentary assistants: historic executives, new deputies, little hands, who are the defendants?
Add to your selections
What does Marine Le Pen risk?
The head of RN deputies is on trial for embezzlement of public funds and complicity. Facts punishable by a prison sentence of up to ten years’ imprisonment and a fine of one million euros. She also faces a five-year ineligibility sentence, which would constitute a significant obstacle for the 2027 presidential election.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers Trial of FN European parliamentary assistants: what Marine Le Pen risks
Add to your selections
On the outcome of the trial, Marine Le Pen’s entourage invokes a “Bayrou jurisprudence” in reference to the acquittal in February 2024 of the boss of the MoDem in a similar case. François Bayrou was suspected of having been the “primary decision maker” of a “fraudulent system” of embezzlement of European funds, between 2005 and 2017, by using Parliament’s remuneration to assistants who actually worked for the MoDem. He was released “for the benefit of the doubt” by the Paris Criminal Court. The prosecution appealed this decision. Eight people, including five former MEPs, as well as the MoDem, were however sentenced to suspended prison sentences and ineligibility.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers François Bayrou acquitted in the case of MoDem parliamentary assistants, due to lack of evidence
Add to your selections
Why is Jordan Bardella caught up in this affair?
In the book investigation The Winning Machine (editions du Seuil, 240 pages, 19.50 euros) published on September 13, the journalist from Release Tristan Berteloot reveals that Jordan Bardella would have participated in the fabrication of false documents intended to justify his activity as assistant to Jean-François Jalkh between February and June 2015. The party, aided by the current president of the RN, would have subsequently falsified documents documents to serve as proof of the work carried out by Jordan Bardella in Parliament.
The World
Support an editorial staff of 550 journalists
Unlimited access to all our content from €7.99/month for 1 year.
Subscribe
Mr. Bardella was never interviewed as part of the investigation, although he benefited from an assistant contract during the period scrutinized during the legal proceedings. The reason? According to Releaseinvestigators focused on suspicions of larger embezzlement, while Jordan Bardella was “only” paid 10,444 euros for four months.
In a press release, the RN says it contests “formally the false accusations contained in an article by Release »and let it be known that Jordan Bardella worked “without any infringement or irregularity, both with regard to the regulations of the European Parliament and French law”. Mr. Bardella announced that he wanted to file a complaint.
Read also | European parliamentary assistants of the RN: Jordan Bardella suspected of having produced “false documents”, the president of the RN denies
Add to your selections
