The relatives of the finalist of the second round of the presidential election Marine Le Pen denounced this Sunday the accusations of embezzlement of European public money, starting with Laurent Jacobelli, spokesperson for Marine Le Pen. “Each time she is a candidate, a stink ball is thrown out to her, a few days before the election. It usually comes from elsewhere in the European Union, in one way or another, ”he railed on RMC.
“Twisted blow, lies, verbal abuse… I think the Macron team is so feverish that they are ready for anything. The European Union is coming to the aid of its little soldier,” he said. Same story on the side of Philippe Olivier, special adviser to the far-right candidate. “The country where the government is trying to criminalize opponents by crude editing is called a dictatorship,” he tweeted.
At the same time, the president of the National Rally Jordan Bardella also reacted to these accusations. “It is an office against which we have filed a complaint twice” and there will “obviously be a third complaint”, he indicated this Sunday on Cnews-Europe 1-Les Echos, before adding: “ The French will not be fooled by the attempts of the European Union and European institutions” to “interfere in the presidential campaign and harm Marine Le Pen. »
Marine Le Pen and her relatives are accused by the European anti-fraud office of having embezzled around 600,000 euros of European public money during their mandates as MEPs, according to a new report submitted in March to French justice and revealed on Saturday by Mediapart. This report concerns the fees that political groups can use at European level.
137,000 euros misappropriated
Marine Le Pen and her relatives are said to have used these funds for national political purposes, for personal expenses or for services for the benefit of commercial companies close to her party, the National Rally and the far-right parliamentary group Europe des nations et freedoms (ENL). Olaf implicates Marine Le Pen but also her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, her former companion Louis Aliot and Bruno Gollnisch, member of the national office of the RN.
According to the report, the candidate would have personally embezzled approximately 137,000 euros of public money from the Parliament of Strasbourg between 2004 and 2017. Since June 2017, Marine Le Pen has also been prosecuted in the investigation carried out in Paris on suspicions of employment fictitious in the European Parliament of party assistants. She is indicted for “embezzlement of public funds” and “complicity” in this crime.