Marine Le Pen tells court docket she’s ‘completed nothing unlawful’
Would-be French president Marine Le Pen appeared in the dock at her £5.6million corruption trial for the first time today and insisited: ‘I’ve done nothing illegal’.
The 56-year-old far-Right firebrand appeared confident but angry as she was cross-examined during a process that could see her imprisoned for 10 years and banned from standing in elections.
She was on Monday at the Paris Correctional Court alongside 24 members and staff of her National Rally party in a case focusing on the EU.
All are accused of stealing a total of €6.8m (£5.6m) of European taxpayers’ money by setting up fake jobs in the European Parliament over a period of at least a decade.
Facing up to specialist anti-corruption judges, Le Pen said: ‘I’m telling you very clearly – I absolutely don’t feel I have committed the slightest irregularity, the slightest illegal move.’
Marine Le Pen arriving at her trial over misappropriation of EU funds at the Paris Correctional Court on Monday
An courtroom sketch of Le Pen in the dock. The far-Right politician appeared confident but angry as she was cross-examined during a process that could see her imprisoned for 10 years and banned from standing in elections
This was despite prosecution evidence pointing to a ‘sophisticated billing system’ being set up by Le Pen, an MEP in Brussels from 2004 until 2017, to divert cash into party funds back in Paris.
Le Pen was questioned about the activity of Catherine Griset, officially her chief of staff at the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg, who in fact spent most of her time in Paris.
An internal investigation by the European Parliament revealed that Griset, now 52 and an MEP herself, ‘only spent 740 minutes, or about twelve hours’ at the Parliament, when she was supposed to be an assistant there, between October 2014 and August 2015.
The RN was called the National Front (FN) in those days, and party records meanwhile show that she was spending up to 22 days a month at the party HQ in Nanterre, the Paris suburb.
As an accredited parliamentary assistant, Giset was supposed to live in Brussels, said prosecutors.
Le Pen told the court: ‘The political activity in France of a European MP is an integral part of the mandate.
‘I don’t see any difference between the mandate of a national or European assistant except the difference in scale.’
Le Pen’s ultimate defence is that MEPs are engaged ‘in politics,’ and they and their assistants can do that wherever they want.
Those implicated in the trial – all of whom deny any wrongdoing – include other leading lights in the RN.
Its founder is the convicted racist and Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen, who is also Marine Le Pen’s father.
Le Pen appeared alongside 24 members and staff of her National Rally party at the trial
Le Pen is currently one of 126 RN MPs, so if she were to be convicted, she would be ruled out of the 2027 presidential election
He was due to appear as a defendant too, but medics said the 96-year-old could stay away because of his ‘deteriorating state of health’.
Embezzlement is a crime punishable in France by up to 10 years in prison, and penalties also available to judges include one million euros in fines.
Le Pen is currently one of 126 RN MPs, so if she were to be convicted, she would be ruled out of the 2027 presidential election, despite currently being a favourite to win.
The investigation into RN fraud began in March 2015, when the European Parliament announced that it had referred possible irregularities to the EU anti-fraud office.
It mainly concerned salaries paid to parliamentary assistants, and even to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s bodyguard.
Le Pen was in 2022 runner up to Emmanuel Macron in the race to become president of France, after a similar result in 2017.
Party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen in turn came second to Jacques Chirac in the presidential election of 2002.
Earlier this year, the RN did so well in European elections that President Macron called snap domestic parliamentary elections.
Le Pen and her fellow party members are accused of stealing a total of €6.8m (£5.6m) of European taxpayers’ money by setting up fake jobs in the European Parliament over a period of at least a decade
It led to the RN saying they were preparing for government, with party leader Jordan Bardella set to become prime minister.
Mr Bardella is a former EU parliamentary assistant for the RN, but is not implicated in the current trial.
In fact, the RN was beaten into third place in the election by the left-wing New Popular Front (NPF), and by Mr Macron’s Renaissance party.
Mr Macron then appointed former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as prime minister, and he does not have a single RN or NPF minister in his government.
The RN embezzlement trial is scheduled to run for three afternoons a week until November 27th.
