Trial against Marine Le Pen for embezzlement of EU funds starts September 30: European Parliament estimates loss at 6.8 million euros | Abroad
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French far-right politician Marine Le Pen, her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, her party Rassemblement National and 25 others will have to answer before the Paris criminal court from September 30 to November 27 for the alleged embezzlement of European funds. The court announced this on Wednesday.
Le Pen and her co-defendants are suspected of using European Union funds between 2004 and 2016 to pay for aides who actually worked for the party. Marine Le Pen has always denied those accusations.
In addition to Marine Le Pen, her father Jean-Marie and, among others, the mayor of Perpignan Louis Aliot and the party’s former number two, Bruno Gollnisch, must also answer. This concerns a total of eleven former MEPs, twelve assistants and four party employees.
The offenses carry prison sentences of up to ten years and fines of up to one million euros or ‘double the amount of the proceeds of the crime’
The investigation into Le Pen and her associates began in March 2015, when the European Parliament announced that it had found possible irregularities by the then National Front party regarding salaries of parliamentary assistants. Le Pen was charged in June 2017 with “breach of trust” and “complicity,” charges that were later reclassified as “embezzlement of public funds.”
The Public Prosecution Service suspects that RN “jointly and deliberately” set up a “system of embezzlement” of the monthly amounts of 21,000 euros allocated by the EU to each MP to pay parliamentary assistants. In reality, these assistants would have already worked wholly or partly for the party, allowing the party to achieve significant salary savings.
The offenses carry prison sentences of up to ten years and fines of up to one million euros or “twice the amount of the proceeds of the crime”.
The European Parliament has filed civil proceedings and estimates the losses suffered at 6.8 million euros.
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