It is the fifth day of the appeal trial for the case of the fake assistants of the European Parliament, who condemned Marine Le Pen to political disqualification. At the entrance to the Paris Court, dozens of cameras continued one more day waiting for the arrival of the far-right leader, because this Tuesday she was testifying for the first time in front of justice.
This judgment is crucial for your 2027 presidential candidacy. If she manages to reduce her sentence, Le Pen could run in the general elections. However, the new defense strategy adopted in this process seems to generate more surprise in the courtroom than doubts about his conviction. The politician took the stand, dressed in a dark blue jacket, to deny in court that she had asked anyone to hire assistants for her party, National Groupwhich at that time operated under the name National Front.
Visibly irritated, after more than two hours of interrogationthe MP for Pas-de-Calais declared that the European Parliament had known about “the pooling of assistants for 10 years”, and did not imagine that the situation could “represent a problem”, because they “never” were alerted. “The European Parliament did not fulfill its function of warning as it should; we did not hide anything at all, neither in the contracts nor in the organizational chart,” Le Pen justified, addressing the president of the court and denying having been aware of having committed any specific crime. A very different position from the one he adopted in the first judicial process, in which he categorically ruled out any illegality. This change of strategy, not deny the existence of the crimebut insisting on the absence of intention to commit it, could help him reduce the sentence of five years of imprisonment. disqualification.
By allusions, the lawyer of the Parlamento Europeo, Patrick Maisonneuvereacted after the hearing: “Today they tell us that we did not raise the alarm, but there is a principle of trust between Parliament and its elected representatives. That trust has been broken.” Maisonneuve highlighted the change in defense strategy of the leader of the extreme right. “It was denied that justice could hold him accountable. After challenging the material facts, they are now challenging the intention. In appeal to the Court of Cassation, at this point they will end up admitting the facts!”
Marine points to her father, founder of the party
During the hearing, Marine Le Pen acknowledged that “things could have been managed better” by Charles Van Houtte, who was her assistant in the European Parliament from 2009 to 2014. The prosecution suspects that Van Houtte centralized, at the request of the ultra leader, the management of MEPs’ expenses to staff who worked solely for the party.
Le Pen, however, denied having participated in that plot, which according to her began before she signed for the party, which was under the command of su padre, Jean-Marie Le Pen. “That is illusory. They were hired even before my election,” insisted the former MEP, who held the position between 2004 and 2017. The youngest of the Le Pens did not hesitate this Tuesday to indirectly point out his fatherrecently deceased.
The judge, tired of the leader’s denials, extended his arm to bring one of the pieces of evidence presented during the more than 10 years of investigation. He read aloud an email sent by the former European MP of National Rally Jean-Luc Schaffhauser to the party’s then treasurer, Wallerand de Saint-Just, in May 2014. “What Marine asks of us is equivalent to signing fictitious contracts. They are going to beat us up because, without a doubt, our expenses will be analyzed with such a large group.” Wallerand de Saint-Just’s response to that email: “I’m pretty sure Marine knows everything.”
Marine breathed, and with the temperance that characterizes him but with some annoyance, he responded to the judge: “If I had received an email like that, I would not have responded with such indifference. Wallerand de Saint-Just knows perfectly well that he would never ask a deputy to hire assistants to work for the National Rally.”
Foreign interference during the trial
The judicial panorama is complicated for Marine Le Pen in a process that will conclude next February 12. The recent statements by Judge Magali Lafourcade do not help either, in which she revealed that two American emissaries contacted her in May 2025convinced that Le Pen was being “unfairly treated” and was the victim of a “political condemnation.”
The magistrate reported that Samuel Samson and Christopher Anderson, two advisors of the Office of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor of the United States Department of State, They were looking for “evidence to support the theory” that “it was a political trial whose objective was to remove her from the presidential race or ostracize her for purely political reasons.”
“It seemed to me a kind of interference to give credence to a speech that, In my opinion, he intended to interfere”Lafourcade explained during an interview for France5, and confessed to having informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that same day. “Something I never do because, as an independent institution, we do not disclose our exchanges with diplomats.” In response, the Quai d’Orsay stated that it took the matter “very seriously.”
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