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Marine Le Pen and her party judged in France

by AI | 30.Sep 2024 | Europe in brief AI

Marine Le Pen, eight other former MEPs and their party are suspected of having paid collaborators with EU money. Their trial, which begins on September 30, could weigh on the political future of the leader of the French far-right.

The president of the parliamentary group of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen, speaks during the parliamentary seminar of the French far-right party at the French National Assembly in Paris on September 14, 2024. (Photo: Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

Paris – Marine Le Pen, eight other former MEPs, 16 other people and their party National Rally are being tried from Monday for embezzlement of public funds or complicity in this crime, which they deny.

They are accused of having paid the party’s employees with European Union money intended to remunerate parliamentary assistants, between 2004 and 2016.

They face a maximum of ten years in prison and above all a ten-year ineligibility sentence likely to hinder Marine Le Pen’s presidential ambitions in France for 2027.

For the prosecution, these “assistants”, hard-pressed to describe their tasks, had only the title. Some had never met their official employer or set foot in the Strasbourg Parliament and, according to the prosecution, only worked for the party – which is prohibited under European regulations.

Most of the defendants contest en masse, citing a “mutualization” of the parliamentary assistants’ work. The RN has been denouncing for years a “relentlessness”, even a “political” procedure. (September 30, 2024)