French parliamentary leader Marine Le Pen and members of her National Rally (RN) political party are currently on trial for embezzling funds from the European parliament. Le Pen, her father, and 27 other individuals are accused of using parliament aid money to fund fake jobs for people as a way of illegally getting them to work for the RN party.
If found guilty on these charges, the penalty will be a 10-year prison sentence, a 10-year bar from public office, and fines of up to one million euros levied on each person on trial. Despite the severity of these accusations and the fact that being found guilty could derail her political aspirations, Le Pen arrived at her first trial feeling calm, saying that she believed that she and her party members had done nothing wrong in the eyes of the law.
Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, founded the National Front political party, which then became the RN, in 1972. Marine Le Pen succeeded her father as president of the RN from 2011 to 2021 and now leads a group of lawmakers in the French National Assembly. Le Pen ran for president in the 2012, 2017, and 2022 presidential elections, having been the runner-up to Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 and 2022 elections.
She is preparing for the 2027 election, where she hopes to have her first victory. However, some supporters fear that the consequences of this trial could either eliminate her as a candidate or hurt her credibility as a country leader.
CNN reports that the activity of the RN party was first brought to attention by Martin Shulz, then-president of the EU parliament, in 2015. He presented his suspicions of fraud to French authorities and the European Fraud Office, who launched their own investigation into the matter.
An organizational chart showed that “16 European lawmakers and 20 parliamentary assistants held official positions within the party — roles unrelated to their supposed duties as EU parliamentary staff.” Other reports found that “some assistants were contractually linked to different MEPs [members of European Parliament] than the ones they were actually working for,” suggesting that there was some sort of scheme to divert parliament funds to pay party employees. Those investigating this case have concluded that Le Pen “orchestrated the allocation of parliamentary assistance budgets and instructed MEPs to hire individuals holding party positions.” These people, while presented as parliament assistants, never did any work for the parliament.
The investigation covers contracts from 2004 to 2016, and the employee records heavily support the conclusion of foul play. The Guardian reports that many of the assistants hired for these alleged fake jobs “were unable to describe their day-to-day work and some never met their supposed MEP boss or set foot in the parliament building.” Other people, including “a bodyguard, secretary, chief of staff, and a graphic designer were all hired under false pretenses.” Several people testified about a 2014 RN meeting that clearly laid out the structure of the fake jobs plan, and other evidence, in this case, includes “contracts for periods as short as a single day to exploit spending allowances.”
The EU Parliament is seeking to recover three million euros, which doesn’t include the one million euros that the RN has already paid back. Mallory Moench of BBC writes that the RN’s donation to the EU was not “an admission of guilt.”
The trial began on September 30, and it will conclude on November 27. During this time, employee records spanning over a decade will be carefully scrutinized, and many people will be questioned on their involvement in the alleged scheme.
Jean-Marie Le Pen will not be on trial because at the age of 96, he was deemed unfit to testify by a parliament court in June. He has denied his involvement in the scheme during his time as party president, as he told CNN, “I did not choose which assistants were assigned to me. That was decided by Marine Le Pen and others. I only signed the contracts.” More will be revealed as this trial unfolds, potentially with dramatic consequences for the future of French politics.
