RN trial: the difficult mission of the defense

Permanent envoy to Paris

IHe has two weeks left to try to reverse the trend. Marine Le Pen and her twenty-four co-defendants, who are appearing for embezzlement of public funds, will try in the coming days to convince the Paris criminal court to release them in the case of European parliamentary assistants.

Last week, the prosecution delivered a vitriolic indictment against the far-right party and against the woman who chaired it from 2011 to 2021, asking for five years in prison (including two years), 300,000 euros. a fine but above all a five-year ineligibility sentence accompanied by provisional execution. If the judges were to follow the accusation, this would mean that the three-time presidential candidate, whatever appeals she could bring, would be unable to run in the 2027 Élysée election.

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Demonstrate the validity of mandates

Since Monday, the defense has had its say. The lawyers for the defendants and the RN (prosecuted as a legal entity) intend to plead the “unjusticiability” of parliamentary acts. Judging the exercise of a political mandate would be contrary to the separation of powers, according to them. And if, during the debates, the defendants were very often put in difficulty regarding the reality of their work in Strasbourg or Brussels, their lawyers will try to demonstrate that they were not carrying out fictitious missions. Their mandate could be understood as political work in the broad sense, according to them.

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Marine Le Pen’s lawyers will speak last, on November 27, before the judgment is deliberated in early 2025.