A few weeks before the start of the trial of 27 senior officials of the National Rally (RN) – including its leader Marine Le Pen – for embezzlement of European Parliament funds, accusations recently published by Release They implicate for the first time Jordan Bardella, current president of the far-right group. The French newspaper publishes the preview of the book by journalist Tristan Berteloot, Winning machineon the rise of the ultra party, in which he claims that Bardella participated in the drafting of false documents to justify his work as a European parliamentary assistant.
“The accusations are false and defamatory. Neither the European Parliament nor the French justice system have questioned the reality of my work. “No one will be fooled by this crude attempt to destabilize me,” Bardella reacted in a message on the X network.
Head of the RN list in the last European elections and candidate for the post of Prime Minister, Bardella has neither been questioned nor charged in the judicial process concerning the parliamentary assistants of the former National Front (renamed the National Group in 2018) which will begin on September 30.
Investigators suspect the far-right group of having launched a “system of misappropriation” of the allowances (21,000 euros per month) allocated by the European Union to each member of the European Parliament to pay parliamentary assistants. These assistants are said to have effectively worked, in whole or in part, for the party. In 2018, the European Parliament estimated the damage caused at 6.8 million euros, over the period 2004 to 2016.
Bardella was officially a parliamentary assistant to former MEP Jean-François Jalkh in 2015. According to Berteloot’s book, the current RN president participated years later in the preparation of false documents supposedly showing that he had carried out tasks on behalf of Jalkh, when he worked for the party in France. Specifically, a press review and diaries, created a posteriori by the party’s lawyers, to which Bardella added his signature and handwritten notes.
The Le Pen group spoke out against these accusations shortly after publication, claiming that its president had worked “without any infraction or irregularity, both with regard to the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament and with regard to French legislation”.
Possible disqualification
Although the French justice system has not yet ruled on Bardella’s participation, among the accused in the upcoming trial is Marine Le Pen (a member of the European Parliament between 2004 and 2017). “We will go to court to affirm that we have not committed any crime. (…) I am convinced of our innocence,” she declared a few years ago. Le Pen days in the newspaper The Tribunedenouncing a “deeply unjust” judicial process.
The party is preparing for a long legal battle that will have to coordinate the judicial and electoral calendars. If the RN members are convicted in the coming months, it is estimated that the various appeals will prolong the procedure until after 2027, the date of the next presidential election (if it is not called in advance).
Le Pen and the other former MPs face charges of embezzlement of public funds and complicity. Among other sanctions, a possible ban on running for office for five years. Experts point out that if convicted, the sentence will most likely be suspended, but there are some exceptions to this rule.
On the other hand, last July, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed the opening of a judicial investigation into suspicions of illicit financing of Marine Le Pen’s campaign for the 2022 presidential election, without the details of the investigations yet being known.
Conviction for defamation
Earlier this month, Le Pen suffered another setback in court. The Paris Court of Appeal upheld the sentence – and the €500 fine – handed down to Marine Le Pen for defaming Cimade, a migrant aid association. In January 2022, the National Group candidate accused several NGOs of being “sometimes accomplices” of the mafias that are enriched by the arrival of migrants.
A Mediapart article accused an extreme MP of using 10,000 euros of public funds to cover personal expenses, including the care of her two dogs, a monthly subscription to a dating site and funeral costs.
