Marine Le Pen, the president of the National Rally party of the French National Assembly, and 26 other persons connected to the European Parliament will present themselves to a Paris criminal court on suspicion of creating fictitious assistants and fake jobs for party MPs to embezzle European Parliament funds for the party.
The investigation was launched after an anonymous report, according to which parliamentary assistants, while actually working for the party, were not fulfilling their duties in the European Parliament. The investigation found that between 2004 and 2016, more than €3 million was spent through the scheme.
Marine Le Pen is accused of being aware of the scheme; it is not excluded that she may even be one of the initiators. The investigation refers to e-mails found during searches, where the tricks of financing the party with the funds of the European Parliament are discussed. Le Pen claims that she has committed no wrongdoing and is innocent.
Against the backdrop of the upcoming trial, it became known that the current president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, may also be involved in the scandal related to the falsification of documents. The party has already denied those accusations, calling them false and slanderous, claiming “a crude attempt at destabilization”.
