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Maxim T’sjoen
Published on
September 29, 2024 at 7:28 p.m.
; updated September 29, 2024 at 8:09 p.m.
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If on the political front, the new government offers a good dose of credibility to the National Rally, the far-right party now has a new stone in its shoe: a two-month trial, in the affair of the parliamentary assistants of the MEPs of the RN.
Marine Le Pen, 26 members or relatives of the RN and the party itself as a legal entity will be judged. The trial begins this Monday, September 30, 2024 and is scheduled to last until November 27, 2024. Almost two months.
A thorn in the side of Marine Le Pen who plays a very big role in this story since she risks, in addition to a fine and a prison sentence (rare in cases of white-collar crime), ineligibility . A loss of civil rights which would thwart his plans to go to the Élysée.
Back to this matter.
What is this business with the RN parliamentary assistants?
Return to March 2015. Martin Schulz, then President of the European Parliament, referred the matter to the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) for disputed cases concerning 20 parliamentary assistants of 24 MEPs from the party led by Marine Le Pen.
The reasons for this referral? The services of the European Parliament note that, of the 80 people listed in the FN organization chart, 20 also occupy the position of collaborator of Frontist MEPs.
The services then fear that the envelopes of RN MEPs (24 in total in 2014), or 23,000 euros per month at the time per envelope, have been misappropriated. Concretely, the suspicions relate to a “system of embezzlement” of these envelopes supposed to remunerate parliamentary assistants.
The latter would have rather worked for the National Front (now National Rally). Enough to allow the Lepenist party, in the grip of financial difficulties (sale of the historic headquarters in 2011, Russian loan for the 2014 Presidential election), to make significant savings.
In 2016, the investigation was entrusted to two investigating judges, then in June 2017, Marine Le Pen was indicted for “breach of trust” and “complicity”. These proceedings were later reclassified as “embezzlement of public funds”.
Who will be judged?
Among the 27 individuals who will be judged, we find Marine Le Pen, Louis Aliot, vice-president of the RN, Bruno Gollnisch, and even the spokesperson for the RN, Julien Odoul.
Jean-Marie Le Pen is also summoned to appear, however his state of health will not allow him to be in court.
We will therefore go to court to say that we have not committed any offense (…) I am very sure of our innocence.
The RN’s line of defense could, among other things, be summarized by this quote from Jordan Bardella, on France Inter in 2021.
The European Parliament, for whom we are political enemies, considers that our parliamentary assistants should only do European civil servant work, which is not our assessment.
However, in the European Parliament’s code of good conduct, it is specified that “only assistance costs necessary and directly linked to the exercise of a Member’s parliamentary mandate can be covered”.
Jordan Bardella declared in 2021 that the party will respond “on this matter to French justice, and not to the European Parliament, which is an administration, but which is not a judicial entity”.
Jean-Marie Le Pen would have launched the machine, Marine Le Pen would have amplified it
In 2021, a report by police officers from the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses (OCLCIFF), consulted by the JDD et France TV, believed that the diversion of envelopes had been introduced when Jean-Marie Le Pen was at the head of the party. However, this system would have been amplified under the presidency of Marine Le Pen.
If it dates back to the time when the FN was still led by his father, the organization brought to light by the investigation seems to have taken on its full scope under the presidency of Marine Le Pen, the day after the 2014 European elections.
These diversions which could be a centralized system would have lasted from 2004 and 2016.
And Jordan Bardella?
Jordan Bardella had not been implicated by the investigation which began in March 2015. However, revelations from Libération, published Monday September 9, 2024, indicate that the president of the party would have participated in the preparation of false documents on his work as a European parliamentary assistant. Jordan Bardella immediately denounced an “attempt at destabilization” as the trial approached. Jordan Bardella then filed a complaint against the journalist from Libération, Tristan Berteloot, author of the book “The Winning Machine. Revelations on the RN on the march towards the Elysée”.
What are people at risk?
If guilt is proven, because “it will be necessary to demonstrate that there has been misappropriation of public funds to which acts of complicity and concealment have been added,” recalls Jean-Marie Brigant, lecturer in private law at the university of Le Mans, nearactu.fr, the accused risk a lot.
Without going into detail about all the possible scenarios, the defendants risk up to ten years in prison and a maximum fine of one million euros.
In a similar case, members of the MoDem received suspended prison sentences and fines.
It is rare to get prison sentences in business crime cases.
But what makes RN executives tremble: the penalties of ineligibility. Marine Le Pen, quasi-candidate for the 2027 Presidential election, faces up to ten years of deprivation of civil rights.
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