The European AntiFraud Office is cracking down on the leader of the farright party who, along with three other members of her party, are alleged to have used Union public funds
Marine Le Pen, her father JeanMarie and other party members are accused of misusing European Parliament funds in their mandates as MEPs. The online newspaper Mediapart has published a report by Olaf (European AntiFraud Office) suggesting more than 600,000 euros in embezzlement.
The Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office is following the dossier and the European Parliament will begin proceedings to collect the money in the next few days. For example, the report, which analyzes the use of European funds by the FrontRassemblement National over many years, recounts a scene from 2010 when Marine Le Pen organized a meeting on The regions and Europe before the financial crisis by Demanded €5,000 reimbursement for hotel expenses and travel expenses for 13 party leaders. However, one of them told Olaf that in reality this meeting was not about Europe at all, but about the election of the new party leader.
Marine Le Pen reportedly hung a European flag long enough to take a photograph that could be sent to Parliament’s offices to justify reimbursement.
Another episode was that of his father, JeanMarie Le Pen, who, on December 28, 2016, ordered 129 bottles of wine and champagne for almost 9,000 euros by sending the bill to the European Parliament, although 113 of these bottles were delivered to his home Montretout. , without any relation to the activities of MEP.
The disputed charges are a new chapter in the Le Pen family’s troubled relationship with the European institutions, which on the one hand have been criticized and labeled an enemy to be killed, on the other hand targeting their own ends in a way that is sometimes contested by the authorities.
The farright candidate, who will fight Emmanuel Macron for the presidency of the republic next Sunday in the second round of the Elysée race, has been under investigation since 2017 on suspicion of making the European Parliament pay for assistants who actually work for her Party, unrelated to their activities as MPs. Like her, 28 current or former party members are being investigated for the same reasons, including her father JeanMarie. The investigation ended in February, and judges will soon decide whether or not to indict him.
Should Marine Le Pen win the election, she would enjoy presidential immunity during her term in office. The other suspects, on the other hand, could be brought to justice.
Those around the candidate reacted with contempt to the new allegations. A few days after the vote, his lawyer Rodolphe Bosselut denounced the suspicious timing and pointed out that the issues were more than 10 years old. One of Marine Le Pen’s special advisers, Philippe Olivier, says that a country where power seeks to criminalize opponents through crude machinations is called a dictatorship.
While the disputed facts certainly do not improve Marine Le Pen’s image, they are unlikely to have a major impact on the vote, partly because they are perceived as a new chapter in an old dispute between Le Pen and the European institutions. The leader of the extreme right has so far managed to create a certain confusion between her political struggle against the European institutions and the casual use of the funds that the same institutions grant her. According to one of the latest polls (Ipsos), the decisive week of the Elysée race begins with Macron in the lead (55%) ahead of competitor Marine Le Pen (45%), who has the TV duel available on Wednesday to reverse the situation.
April 18, 2022 (Change April 18, 2022 | 14:12)
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