The Paris prosecutor’s office on November 13 asked the court to find far-right MP Marine Le Pen guilty of embezzlement in the European Parliament fraud case.
The prosecution requested five years in prison for Le Pen, three of them suspended. In the event of such a verdict, the de facto leader of the National Rally will not be able to participate in the French presidential election in 2027, Le Monde reported.
During last week’s court hearing, Le Pen said that she plans to run for president of France for the fourth time, and if she is banned from doing so, “millions of French people will be deprived of their presidential candidate.”
After the prosecution’s case, Le Pen’s defense will have the opportunity to present its arguments to the judge. The date of the verdict is likely to come in early 2025.
Le Pen may appeal if found guilty, but the prosecutor’s office insists on carrying out the sentence immediately. Therefore, everything will depend on whether a new trial will take place before or after 2027, when France holds presidential elections.
They accuse Marine Le Pen, her National Rally party, and 24 other individuals, including current and former French lawmakers and MEPs, of illegally using European Parliament funds to pay parliamentary assistants between 2004 and 2016.
The evidence presented in court revealed that many of the “assistants” of legislators rarely visited the European Parliament, and in some cases, they did not even communicate with the MEPs they were supposed to work for.
Both Le Pen and the other defendants in the case deny any wrongdoing.
At the same time, in 2021, the French right-wing populist leader was found to have abused 339 thousand euros—she registered a fictitious assistant to receive budgetary compensation for him, and the court then forced Marine Le Pen to return the illegally obtained funds.
Questioned about how exactly she selected her presumed parliamentary aides and what their tasks were, Marine Le Pen gave general answers or said she could not remember.
European Parliament authorities said the legislature had lost $3.4 million through this ‘fake’ jobs scheme. The National Rally has already paid back one million euros, which the party insists is not an admission of guilt.
