After its relative failure in the July snap elections, France’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party is entering an eventful autumn on the judicial front. Twenty-seven people, including Marine Le Pen, will be standing trial before the Paris criminal court from September 30 to November 27, in the case of the allegedly fictitious hiring of MEP assistants.

The defendants are suspected of having set up, between 2004 and 2016, a “system of misappropriation” of money paid by the European Union (EU) for parliamentary staff, in order to finance political activities by the party, which was then called the Front National (FN). The European Parliament has estimated the misappropriated sum to be around €7 million.

Under threat of a prison sentence and a ban from running for office, Le Pen has always contested these accusations. “We will therefore go to court to say that we have committed no offense […] I am very sure of our innocence,” she told newspaper La Tribune Dimanche in September, denouncing “profoundly unfair” proceedings.

How did this case begin?

On January 20, 2014, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) received an anonymous tip-off about “possible fraud.” The letter flagged cases of “presumed fictitious employment” on the part of the FN and its then-president, Le Pen, who was an MEP from 2004 to 2017.

The European anti-fraud body opened an administrative investigation, scrutinizing the activities of two people close to Le Pen: Catherine Griset, her chief of staff, and Thierry Légier, her bodyguard, also presented as her parliamentary assistants. The investigation revealed that Griset, now an MEP, “spent only 740 minutes, or around 12 hours” at the European Parliament, when she was supposedly an assistant there, between October 2014 and August 2015. The OLAF report also described Légier’s employment as “fictitious.”

In March 2015, the case took on even greater significance. The then-president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, referred possible irregularities to OLAF concerning salaries paid to other assistants. He reported the matter to the French Ministry of Justice after noting that 20 parliamentary assistants were also part of the FN organization chart, some even occupying key positions alongside Marine Le Pen and the party’s former honorary president, her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

The European Parliament estimated the total sum misappropriated by this “system” between 2004 and 2016 at €6.8 million. In 2017, it demanded repayment from Le Pen of almost €340,000, a sum corresponding to the inappropriate employment of Griset and Légier. Faced with the leader’s refusal to pay, the Parliament’s financial services deducted tens of thousands of euros from her MEP allowance before she left Brussels in 2017. Threatened with an enforceable recovery order, Le Pen eventually repaid €330,000 in July 2023. Her lawyer, Rodolphe Bosselut, pointed out that this “in no way constitutes an explicit or implicit recognition of the European Parliament’s claims.”

What did the French investigation reveal?

Following Schulz’s report, a preliminary investigation was opened in France in March 2015 for breach of trust, on the basis that the FN’s practice could amount to illegal party financing. Entrusted to the Central Office for Combating Corruption, Financial and Fiscal Offenses, the investigations led to a series of searches, notably at the party’s headquarters. Investigators gathered damning testimony and documents. For example, a letter sent by the party’s former treasurer, Wallerand de Saint-Just, to Marine Le Pen, dated June 2014, in which he wrote: “We’ll only get by if we make significant savings thanks to the European Parliament.”

A judicial investigation was opened in December 2016 on charges of “breach of trust,” “concealment of breach of trust,” “organized gang fraud,” “forgery and use of forgeries” and “undeclared labor.” According to a summary report, “the study of documents discovered […] highlighted the setting up of a fraudulent system, involving several FN senior members.”

More than 20 indictments were issued, including against Le Pen in 2017 for “breach of trust” and “complicity in breach of trust.” A year later, this indictment was aggravated, with the charge becoming a “misappropriation of public funds.”

In December 2023, at the end of a nine-year investigation, the investigating judges called for the FN and 27 of its senior members and employees to be tried. The parliamentary assistants “are not mere officials of the European Parliament, but have a technical and political role,” the party said in its own defense after this decision. It added that they were “perfectly entitled, moreover, to engage in activism.”

Who are the defendants?

In addition to the party, which is being tried as a legal entity, several members or former members are among the 27 defendants:

• Eleven MEPs elected under the FN banner, including Marine Le Pen, Perpignan Mayor Louis Aliot, former RN interim president Jean-François Jalkh, MEP Nicolas Bay, and the party’s former number two, Bruno Gollnisch.
• Twelve people presented as parliamentary assistants, including Légier and Griset, as well as current RN MPs Timothée Houssin and Julien Odoul.
• Four party staff, including de Saint-Just.

Also implicated in the case, Jean-Marie Le Pen, 96, will not be present at the trial due to his state of health.

What is Marine Le Pen risking?

Marine Le Pen is on trial for embezzlement of public funds and complicity. She could face up to 10 years imprisonment and a €1 million fine. She also faces a five-year ban on eligibility for political office, something which would be a major obstacle to running in the 2027 French presidential election.

Regarding the outcome of the trial, Le Pen’s entourage is referencing the “Bayrou jurisprudence” following the February 2024 acquittal of Macron-allied MoDem party leader François Bayrou in a similar case. Bayrou was accused of having been the “principal decision-maker” in a “fraudulent system” for misappropriating European funds between 2005 and 2017, by using parliamentary remuneration for assistants who were actually working for the party. Bayrou was acquitted “with the benefit of the doubt” by the Paris criminal court. The prosecutor’s office has appealed this decision. Eight people, including five former MEPs, as well as the MoDem, received suspended prison sentences and ineligibility for political office.

Why is Jordan Bardella caught up in this affair?

In the investigative book La Machine à Gagner (“The Winning Machine”) published on September 13, Libération journalist Tristan Berteloot revealed that RN President Jordan Bardella was allegedly involved in forging documents to substantiate his work as an assistant to Jalkh between February and June 2015. Aided by Bardella, the party allegedly falsified documents after the fact, to act as proof of Bardella’s work in the European Parliament.

Bardella was never called to testify as part of the investigation, even though he held an assistant’s contract during the period under scrutiny. Why was this? According to Libération, investigators focused on more substantial suspicions of embezzlement, whereas Bardella was paid “only” €10,444 for four months.

In a press release, the RN said it “formally contests the false accusations contained in an article by Libération,” and pointed out that Bardella had worked “without any infringement or irregularity, with regard to both the European Parliament’s rules and French law.” Bardella has announced that he intends to lodge a complaint.