For more than five years, investigators have been working on the case of the European parliamentary assistants of the National Front, which has since become the National Assembly.
The police made a report in mid-February for the examining magistrate, which the Journal du Dimanche and France Télévisions were able to consult.
What is the RN criticized for?
The party is suspected of having used the money allocated to MEPs to pay their parliamentary assistants in order to pay, instead, collaborators who never worked for MEPs but only for the National Rally (at the time National Front).
See also Suspicion of fictitious jobs: what can or cannot be done by an MEP's assistant
The leaders of the party - including Marine Le Pen and her father Jean-Marie - are accused of having set up this system "in a concerted and deliberate manner".
Initially, it was OLAF (European Anti-Fraud Office) which looked into the issue in 2014, recalls L'Express.
The investigation was then entrusted to investigating judges of the Paris court in 2016 and the European Parliament became a civil party.
In all, 25 elected officials and assistants were indicted for "embezzlement of public funds" or concealment and the RN itself was for "organized swindle" and "hidden work".
The European Parliament estimates that the damage amounts to 6.8 million euros.
What's the novelty?
The conclusions of a report of nearly 100 pages, drawn up by the police officers of the Central Office for the fight against corruption and financial and fiscal offenses (OCLCIFF), in charge of the investigation, were able to be consulted by the Journal Sunday and France Télévisions.
It is written there that the party has "through its executives and leaders, set up a fraudulent organized system of embezzlement of European funds for its benefit, through fictitious jobs of parliamentary assistants".
The report also affirms, according to the JDD, that this scheme would have been established when Jean-Marie Le Pen was still at the head of the party, but that it is under the presidency of his daughter, Marine, that he took charge. magnitude.
The police now believe they have enough evidence against 17 leaders or members of the RN.
How does the RN defend itself?
Rodolphe Bosselut, Marine Le Pen's lawyer, reaffirmed in the JDD this Sunday that all people paid via the envelope of the European Parliament have worked there at one time or another.
"Even the bodyguard of Marine Le Pen", assured his side Jordan Bardella, on France inter.
Emails and messages, unveiled by Le Monde in 2019, however seem to show the opposite.
According to the daily, on June 22, 2014, the European deputy Jean-Luc Schaffhauser wrote to the treasurer of the FN, Wallerand de Saint-Just: "What Marine asks us is equivalent to signing for fictitious jobs ... And that's the deputy which is criminally responsible on its own money even if the party is the beneficiary […] I understand the reasons of Marine but we will be ignited because we will look, of course, our uses with a magnifying glass with such an important group ”.
Read also Affair of parliamentary assistants of the FN: overwhelming exchanges unveiled
Jordan Bardella put forward another argument on France Inter on Monday: that of the difference in point of view.
“The European Parliament […] considers that our parliamentary assistants should only do European civil servant work, which is not our assessment”.
However, the European Parliament's code of conduct is clear on the subject: “Only the costs of assistance necessary and directly linked to the exercise of a Member's parliamentary mandate can be covered.
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What is Eric Dupond-Moretti doing in this story?
It is well known: the best defense is attack.
An adage that the treasurer of the RN, Wallerand de Saint-Just, applied this Sunday.
On BFMTV, he accused the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, of being at the origin of the leak of the police report, denouncing a "violation of the secrecy of the instruction".
The latter refuted the attack and even regretted, on the news channel, that the minutes were "the subject of a publication".
Is there a link with the upcoming elections?
This is one of the RN's recurring arguments: claiming that this case comes out before each new election.
Here, one month away from the regional.
Marine Le Pen affirmed it on his Twitter account and Jordan Bardella took up this argument on France Inter: “We have been hearing this case for 5 years, each time one month before the elections […].
The most enlightened will see a link with the electoral calendar ”.
The JDD, an official organ of Macronist power, emerges the same endless affair of parliamentary assistants, as in each election.
Nothing new under the sun, except maybe some good polls in sight?
MLP https://t.co/MkFLckbIsq
- Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) May 16, 2021
In 2017, already, Marine Le Pen denounced "an instrumentalisation of justice", while she had refused a summons for a free hearing with the police before the presidential election.