The European Parliament is demanding more than 300,000 euros from the founder of the French far-right party, Jean-Marie Le Pen, for inappropriate expenses during the period he held his seat between 2009 and 2018. The investigation led by the The Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) concluded that the former parliamentarian had hidden virtual reality glasses, ties, umbrellas, kitchen scales and up to 129 bottles of wine, among other things, as charges administrative tasks that the institution takes care of for MEPs.
The Secretary General of the European Parliament notified the former leader of the French far right of the request for 303,200.99 euros for the expenses which were reimbursed to him after having presented them under budget line 400, which covers “administrative and operating expenses of the European Parliament”. political groups.” and the secretariat for non-registered MEPs”, as revealed by AFP. The former ultra leader appealed this decision to the General Court of the EU (TGUE), according to what his lawyer told the French agency.
‘Parliament’s administration is required, when it receives serious indications that funds have been unduly paid, to carry out a review of the compliance of the case in question with the applicable financial management rules, to request clarification from the member concerned and to recover the money unduly paid if proof of compliant expenditure is not provided. This does not replace any legal procedure or investigation,” declares the European Parliament.
The French justice system approached the National Group to organize a “system” of financing the salaries of its employees with funds from the European Parliament intended for assistants to MEPs. The intrigue of the fictitious jobs involved the establishment of a “system of diversion” of the allowances allocated by the European Union to each MP to pay parliamentary assistants (it was then 21,000 euros per month), who worked in reality entirely or partially for the party in France, according to the prosecution. In 2018, the European Parliament estimated the damage caused at 6.8 million euros, over the period 2004 to 2016.
Several far-right personalities, including the current leader of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen, sat in the dock. In the case of his father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, also indicted, he was spared due to his great age (he is 96 years old) and his state of health. Since February, she has been under judicial guardianship, which gives her three daughters the right to control her decisions. Mediapart revealed a video of the former ultra-singing leader with a neo-Nazi rock group two days before the start of this trial.
