Marine Le Pen, leader of the ultra -rightist regroup (RN), has been declared this Monday guilty of embezzlement of public funds, with a penalty to four years of jail – two firm with an electronic bracelet – and the five -year political disqualification. The condemnation, which prevents him from presenting himself to public office, could be appealed. But the Court has decided that it will be fulfilled immediately without waiting for the resolution of said appeal. This is the worst possible scenario for the RN leader, who left the room in an angry way without finishing hearing the conviction. Le Pen’s career for 2027 presidentials is greatly complicated. It will depend on what is late in resolving the appeal that Le Pen will present against the decision.
After 10 in the morning, in Room 2.01 of the Paris Correctional Court, the same one that has frequented during the nine weeks of the process with others imputed by the same matter, Le Pen took a seat in the first row of the defendant’s bench. From there, the RN leader has heard the sentence that has declared her guilty to her and eight Eurodiputs of her political formation in the case for a diversion of European funds originally destined to pay advisors in Brussels. The President of the Court continues at this time by renovating the motivations and the type of conviction, which will surely lead to the impossibility of le pen of being chosen for public office. The rest of the defendants and partners of the RN leader remained in the room while she was already at the headquarters of the party.
Le Pen was wrapped in the room by the closest members of the clan, also charged in the same cause. To her left, her best friend and ex -limited, Catherine Griset. On the right, the Vice President of the Party, Mayor of Perpiñán and former sentimental partner, Louis Aliot, sentenced to 18 months in jail (six firm) and three years of disqualification, although without immediate execution. “The challenge exceeds the framework of the Court’s Chamber. This is going to take something, there will be some explanations,” warned the president of the Court, admitting the dimension of the consequences of the conviction, already anticipating the magnitude of the sentences.
The court verdict indicates that, although there has been no “personal enrichment”, the crime occurred for the benefit of the “comfort of the party leaders.” The court considers that the total damage is 4.1 million euros and, in the case of Le Pen, the amount of its embezzlement would amount to 474,000 euros. On the existence of a “system” that organizes the diversion of public funds, the Court considers that “it really has had no doubts” in view of the elements of the investigation. A system, the sentence indicates, in whose “heart Marine Le Pen was since 2009”. “Marine knows,” said one of the intervened emails.
The Colea case for 10 years. But the Prosecutor’s Office requested in November pages of disqualification against Le Pen and the other 24 defendants – members of the party, exeurodiputados and former parliamentary assistants – “modulated” according to responsibilities. The accusation also requested five years in prison, of which two would be firm – although with the possibility of adjustment – and five years of disqualification for the head of the deputies of the RN, in addition to a fine of 300,000 euros. “His only objective is to prevent me from being the candidate of my group in the presidential elections [de 2027]. You have to be deaf and blind to not see it, ”he lamented at the time, despite the fact that she voted for the law that would allow her disqualification.
The so -called fictitious job scandal was, supposedly, an action directed by using the financing he received from Brussels between 2004 and 2016, a period in which the party had much more presence in Europe – and, therefore, subsidies – than in France, for functions outside its legal perimeter. A practice, to a greater or exploited and demonstrated measure, extended to other parties in France, such as that of the current prime minister, François Bayrou, the insumisa France of Jean-Luc Mélenchon or, in Spain, the Podemos Formation. The then president of the Eurocamara, the German socialist Martin Schulz, filed a complaint in 2015 that led to almost 10 years of investigation and ended in the trial.
Brussels then raised to 6.8 million euros – although the court has now reduced it significantly – the amount from which the RN benefited through a “fraudulent system of diversion of funds” that, fundamentally, allocated the money to pay assistants in the European Parliament to domestic matters of the formation in France. During his allegations, according to the newspaper The worldthe two prosecutors described, one after another, the structure that, in reality, they worked for the party.
The defendants were suspicious, according to the French magistrates who carried out the instruction since the end of 2016, of having launched “in a concert and deliberate way” during that period a “embezzlement system” of the 21,000 euros per month assigned by the EU to each Eurodip- to remunerate its parliamentary assistants. The latter would have worked all or part of their time for the RN, thus allowing the party a considerable savings in salaries.
In 2014, after the election of about twenty MEP Deputies based on the availability of funds. In a message you read: “One or the other, you can choose.”
The issue can end in the offices of the Constitutional Council, chaired by the faithful macronist Richard Ferrand, whose appointment was endorsed by Parliament month and a half for just a vote and with the abstention of the Le Pen party, which many interpret as a favor that will carry counterparts. This agency has not yet seated jurisprudence on the provisional application of an disqualification penalty for a national position, although it did endors it last Friday for a municipal position in a case of a Mayotte councilor.
