The far-right Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Regroupment (RN), appeared before journalists after eight o’clock this Wednesday afternoon. She was leaving the courtroom that is judging her and 24 other members of her party—then called the National Front—for diverting Union funds to their party in France.European Union assigned to pay advisors in Brussels. Le Pen had red eyes and seemed somewhat excited. Angry, but also bewildered. He had just heard how the prosecutor asked for five years in prison, ―with the option of three being suspended―, and a sentence of ineligibility for the next five years with immediate compliance, that is, during the appeal process it would already be applied. that part of the pain. If she were convicted and the ruling was confirmed, she would not be able to run for president in 2027. The worst news for Le Pen.
A month and a half after the start of the process, the prosecution on Wednesday requested disqualification sentences against Le Pen and the other 24 defendants – party members, former MEPs and former parliamentary assistants – “modulated” according to responsibilities. The prosecution requested five years in prison, of which two would be firm, but with the possibility of adjustment, and five years of disqualification for the head of the RN deputies, in addition to a fine of 300,000 euros. “Their only objective is to prevent me from being my group’s candidate in the presidential elections.” [de 2027]. You have to be deaf and blind not to see it,” she lamented.
Last week, Le Pen told the court that the disqualification she could face would have “extremely serious consequences,” such as depriving millions of voters of “their candidate.” If that were to happen, the party would also have to activate the succession process with immediate effect and definitively crown Le Pen’s dolphin, the young 29-year-old MEP and current president of the party, Jordan Bardella. A ruling of this type would be dramatic for Le Pen, whose party received the most votes in the last legislative elections (11 million ballots) and who had never before been so close to the doors of the Elysee Palace.
The so-called fictitious jobs scandal was, supposedly, an action directed by the leadership of Le Pen’s French far-right party to use the financing it received from Brussels between 2004 and 2016, a period in which the party had much more presence in Europe ―and, therefore, subsidies― than in France, for functions outside its legal perimeter. Brussels then raised to 6.8 million euros the amount from which the RN benefited through a “fraudulent system of diversion of funds” that, fundamentally, used the money to pay assistants in the European Parliament for domestic matters of the formation. in France. During his arguments, as published Le Mondethe two prosecutors described, one after another, the structure of a “system” consisting of hiring “fake” European parliamentary assistants who, in reality, worked for the party.
The defendants are suspected, according to the French magistrates who carried out the investigation since the end of 2016, of having launched “in a concerted and deliberate manner” during that period a “system of embezzlement” of the 21,000 euros per month allocated by the EU. to each MEP to remunerate their parliamentary assistants. The latter would have worked all or part of their time for the RN, thus allowing the party considerable savings in salaries.
In 2014, after the election of around twenty FN MEPs, party treasurer Wallerand de Saint-Just wrote: “We can only get ahead if we manage to save significantly through the European Parliament,” the prosecutor recalled, mentioning emails —“ not all, since there are too many”—who talk about “financial arrangements” and “transfers” of certain attendees to certain deputies depending on the availability of funds. One message reads: “One or the other, you can choose.”
If the disqualification is issued with a suspended sentence, as happened with the accused of the Democratic Movement – the other French political party that went through a similar process -, it would not be applied unless Le Pen committed another infraction within the period set by the court. The decision should be known in early 2025.
Among the accused is the father of the current leader of the RN and founder of the former National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, 96 years old, as well as 11 other MEPs in that period, such as Louis Aliot (current mayor of Perpignan), and even the RN himself, who is asked to pay a fine of 4.3 million euros. The patriarch of the family, who was hospitalized this Wednesday, has not been present at the trial due to his state of health, considered incompatible with a hearing.
The process has a direct impact on French political life, just at the moment in which Le Pen’s party has become the arbiter of the contest. After an unforeseen result in the last elections, much worse than what the party predicted, Macron encouraged the RN by rejecting the left’s proposal to form a Government. The far-right party – with 126 deputies and 10 million votes – now holds the key to the continuity of the new Executive of the prime minister, the conservative Michel Barnier.
