Mr. Marquis Wallerand de Saint-Just d’Autingues has extensive experience in court and knows how to answer the question politely. Not only because he was the lawyer for forty years of the National Front (FN) and subsidiarily that of Brigitte Bardot, but because the treasurer of the party was already sentenced in 2023 to a six-month suspended sentence and a two-year disqualification sentence for “cover-up.” of abuse of social assets” in the Jeanne case, a smart agreement to finance the 2012 legislative elections.
Mᵉ Saint-Just, 74, who has few connections with Robespierre’s close friend, except that they were both elected in Aisne and arrived in Paris, voluntarily wrapped herself in his good faith and was outraged, on Monday, November 4, in the trial. of the assistants of the European Parliament, at the slightest nefarious suspicion. He was treasurer, a volunteer of the FN since 2009 and for twelve years, a member of the political bureau, then the executive bureau, and even vice president, and an employee of the party since 2014 for legal and judicial affairs. Since joining the FN in 1986, he has stood in every election, “except in the presidency of the Republic”jokes the accused.
In 2016, the financial situation of the FN was not brilliant, expenses increased in three years from 140,000 to 662,000 euros and the debt exceeded 9.1 million. “We especially had a cash flow problem, -the lawyer pleads. In truth, the movement’s situation was healthy and will only improve. » Meanwhile, it is necessary to reduce costs and the prosecutor’s office suspects that he wanted to take advantage of European money to alleviate the party’s finances, hiring fictitious assistants.
Clues abound. He saw no malice in the fact that Parliament paid 21,000 euros in compensation to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s bodyguard when he changed his contract as a parliamentary assistant, nor when the president’s devoted secretary became Bruno Gollnisch’s assistant on paper. He no longer knows if he realized that Marine Le Pen’s chief of staff was also stationed in Strasbourg or if Yann Maréchal, Marine’s sister, responsible for the large demonstrations at the headquarters, had followed the same path.
“Being aware is not being an accomplice! »
The president of the court puts before his nose an email showing that Marine Le Pen’s driver was paid as a parliamentary assistant, the old lawyer at first does not remember it, then he assures “Being aware is not being complicit!” » and protests with the habit that comes from long attendance at the bar: “A fictitious job, in French, is a person who does not work, I am quite shocked by this deviation in the language! »
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