The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has told a Paris appeals court there was no “system” set up by her party to misuse European parliament funds, as she gave evidence in a fresh embezzlement trial that will determine whether she can run in the 2027 presidential election.
“The word ‘system’ bothers me because [it gives] the impression of a manipulation,” Le Pen said on Tuesday, denying she had told members of the European parliament to hire assistants who instead worked for the party headquarters in Paris.
“Never in my life would I ask a member of the [European] parliament to take assistants to work for the Front National,” Le Pen told the court.
Le Pen, 57, who leads the anti-immigration National Rally (RN), formerly called Front National, was considered to be one of the top contenders for next year’s election until she was barred from running for public office last March after being found guilty of an extensive and long-running fake jobs scam at the European parliament.
Judges ruled that Le Pen was “at the heart” of a carefully organised system of embezzlement of European parliament funds from 2004 to 2016. They gave her a five-year ban from running for office, effective immediately, and a four-year prison sentence, with two of those years suspended and two to be served outside jail with an electronic bracelet. They ordered her to pay a €100,000 fine.
Le Pen, who is trained as a lawyer, is now seeking to overturn that verdict and sentence, denying wrongdoing and insisting she wants to run again for president.
The appeal trial verdict and any sentence, expected before the summer, will determine her political future and whether she can make a fourth presidential attempt next year. If not, she would be replaced by her protege and party president, 30-year-old Jordan Bardella.
The appeals court heard that taxpayer money allocated to members of the European parliament to pay their assistants based in Strasbourg or Brussels was allegedly siphoned off by the party to pay its own workers in France, in violation of the parliament’s rules.
The staff in France had no connection to work undertaken at the European parliament. The loss to European funds was estimated at €4.8m (£4.2m).
During questioning on Tuesday, the head judge, Michèle Agi, read from an email that was cited as evidence of the alleged system of fake jobs. In it, one member of the European parliament, who had previously been a lawyer, wrote to the party treasurer: “What Marine is asking is equivalent to us signing for fictitious jobs …” He warned this was likely to be spotted. The treasurer replied: “I think Marine knows all that …”
Le Pen told the court she was not copied in on the email and did not know about it. She said if she had received that email she would not have replied as “casually” as the treasurer did. She said she had never asked any European parliament member to hire assistants to work for the party and that she had never given MEPs any “instructions on hiring assistants”.
Le Pen was asked about statements to investigators from two former party members who alleged she had told 23 European parliament members in 2014 that they could have one parliament assistant – out of a potential two – and that the rest of the money “would benefit the party”. Le Pen said: “That is false!”
She said accusations made by some former party members should be discarded because they were “terribly hostile” to her, “like in a divorce”.
Le Pen has appealed against last year’s verdict alongside 10 of the 24 party members who were convicted. The appeal trial will run until 12 February.
The legal proceedings stem from a 2015 alert raised to French authorities about possible fraud by Martin Schulz, then the president of the European parliament.
