After a month and a half of trial, it is time for requisitions for Marine Le Pen, the National Rally and 24 other defendants, accused of having embezzled funds from the European Parliament for the benefit of the party. The two-vote requisitions began around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, and will last all day.
After general considerations, the two representatives of the prosecution, Louise Neyton and Nicolas Barret, should begin by developing their analysis of the “system” which, according to them, was put in place at the National Front (now National Rally) between 2004 and 2016.
According to the accusation, a “centralized management system” was established to “empty” the envelopes of 21,000 euros per month to which MEPs were entitled, to pay “fictitious” parliamentary assistants who actually worked for the party ( as a bodyguard, graphic designer or secretary), with a view to “relieving finances”.
Prosecutors should then focus on the case of each of the defendants: the nine former Frontist MEPs, their 12 former parliamentary assistants, the accountants and the treasurer, and finally the party itself. In total, there are 26 defendants, tried before the criminal court for embezzlement of public funds, complicity or concealment of this offense.
Finally, in the late afternoon or early evening, prosecutors are expected to announce the sentences requested against each person. They face sentences of up to 10 years’ imprisonment, a fine of one million euros and a penalty of ineligibility – which could seriously hamper Marine Le Pen’s ambitions for the 2027 presidential election.
If such a sentence were imposed, it would have “extremely serious consequences,” she argued at the bar. “That would have the effect of depriving me of being a presidential candidate, that’s it.”
“Behind there are 11 million people who voted for the movement that I represent. So tomorrow potentially, millions and millions of French people would actually be deprived of their presidential candidate,” she argued.
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