Marine Le Pen It's truly a time to forget. After the elections lost by surprise by Rassemblement National, a new tile arrives on the leader of the French far right. The Paris prosecutor's office has opened a preliminary investigation into alleged illicit financing dating back to the 2022 presidential election campaign, lost by Le Pen against the current head of the Elysée, Emmanuel Macron.
Le Pen: the prosecutor's investigation
According to what BfmTv reveals, the investigation was opened on July 2 following a report received last April from the National Commission for Election Campaign Accounts and Political Financing. The authority that examines the electoral expenses and financing of candidates had reported irregularities at the Prosecutor's Office who now wants to see clearly. The possible crimes include embezzlement in the exercise of public functions, fraud and forgery.
Previous
Already in December two years ago, the same commission had adjusted the expense for the painting work of 12 rented buses with the symbol of the candidate and the party, for an amount of 316.182 euros. The expenditure was considered “irregular”. At the time Marine Le Pen decided to appeal to the Constitutional Council, only to later give up. Not only that, but also for the electoral campaign for the 2017 elections (these also lost), some irregular entries were reported.
And going even further back, last June, the Supreme Court definitively validated the condemnation of the Rassemblement National (RN) for the inflated invoices for the electoral campaign kits used by far-right candidates in the legislative elections of 2012 and reimbursed by the state.
Everlasting Marine Le Pen is awaiting trial, with 24 other people and the RN, in the trial which will see her accused from 30 September for misappropriation of European funds, in the case of the remuneration of assistants of MEPs between 2004 and 2016.
The showdown continues in the RN after the lost elections
In the meantime, the showdown within the Rassemblement National after the elections surprisingly lost by the party, which against all odds came in third place behind the lefts united in the New Popular Front and Ensemble, the political alliance led by President Emmanuel Macron.
The candidate rewardsr Jordan Bardella, for his part, admitted to having committed "errors", taking on his “share of responsibility”. Le Pen's twenty-eight-year-old dolphin evoked in particular "the investiture of some candidates" who were then accused of discriminatory, conspiracy and racist phrases which "do not respond", he says, to his "political line". And the choice of candidates seems to be the reason behind the resignation of the party's general director, Gilles Pennelle, considered the main architect of the so-called "Matignon Plan", i.e. the organizational and logistical strategy that should have led the RN to victory. In fact, it was he who chose many of the candidates who later proved to be decisive for the electoral defeat on 7 July.
