National Rally assistants affair
The National Rally assistants affair ("Affaire des assistants parlementaires du Rassemblement national") is an ongoing legal case concering the far-right National Rally (Rassemblement national, RN) party in France. 27 members of the party, including its leader Marine Le Pen, are accused of having hired fictitious European Parliament assistants between 2004 and 2016 to misappropriate funds.
Background
[edit]The National Rally, formerly the National Front (Front national), is a far-right political party in France. It has been led by Marine Le Pen since 2012, who has undertaken a process of de-demonisation to soften the party's image and received a record 41,5% of the vote in the second round of the 2022 French presidential election.
History
[edit]Investigation
[edit]In January 2014, the European Anti-Fraud Office opened an investigation into Marine Le Pen after receiving a tip-off alleging that she had hired fictitious assistants during her term as an MEP, which began in 2004. The investigation found that Catherine Griset, Le Pen's chief of staff, had only worked around 12 hours between October 2014 and August 2015, when she was supposedly Le Pen's assistant.[1]
As the investigation continued, it widened to include a number of other RN politicians who had served as MEPs or had been hired as assistants to MEPs, including Louis Aliot, Bruno Gollnisch, Julien Odoul, and Nicolas Bay.[2]
In December 2023, French authorities announced that they would be charging Le Pen and twenty-six other members of the RN with embezzlement, with a trial to be held before the Tribunal judiciaire de Paris.[3] If the trial finds her guilty, she could face up to ten years incarceration and be barred from running for election for ten years.[4]
Trial
[edit]The trial for the affair began in September 2024.[5]
References
[edit]- ^ Maad, Assma (30 September 2024). "Why Le Pen and 26 of her party's members are standing trial in fake EU Parliament jobs case". Le Monde. Retrieved 1 October 2024.
- ^ Geslin, Laurent (30 September 2024). "Le Pen's political future at stake during embezzlement trial". Euractiv. Retrieved 1 October 2024.
- ^ "Le Pen, her party and 26 others will be tried over fake European Parliament jobs". Le Monde. 8 December 2023. Retrieved 1 October 2024.
- ^ Abboud, Leila (22 September 2023). "Marine Le Pen should stand trial for embezzling EU funds, prosecutors say". The Financial Times. Retrieved 1 October 2024.
- ^ Vaux-Montagny, Nicolas (30 September 2024). "France's Le Pen denies wrongdoing as she and her party go on trial accused of embezzling EU funds". AP News. Retrieved 1 October 2024.