France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen is facing a crucial moment in her embezzlement trial, with her eligibility to run for president in 2027 at stake.
For weeks, Le Pen has thrown all her energy into fighting what she calls unfair accusations that her party embezzled European Parliament funds. If she is found guilty, the court could impose a period of ineligibility to run for public office.
She is anticipating a guilty verdict, as prosecutors wrap up their case on Wednesday and lay out their proposed sentence. The trial is scheduled to finish on November 27, with a verdict due at a later date.
The National Rally and 25 of its officials, including Le Pen, are accused of having used money intended for EU parliamentary aides instead to pay staff who worked for the party between 2004 and 2016, in violation of the 27-nation bloc’s regulations. The National Rally was called the National Front at the time.
Le Pen, a lawyer by training, has been a forceful presence in court (AP)
As she was heading to the Paris courtroom last week, Le Pen wished Donald Trump “every success” in a message on X.
The French far-right leader, who has vowed to run for President for the fourth time in 2027, may have in mind that Mr Trump’s felony conviction earlier this year did not divert his path away from the White House.
From the outset of the long and complex trial, Le Pen has been a forceful presence, sitting in the front row, staying for long hours into the night and expressing her irritation at allegations she says are false.
If found guilty, Le Pen and her co-defendants could face up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to one million euro (£830,000) each. But in recent days, Le Pen’s biggest concern focused on the court’s ability to impose a period of ineligibility to run for office.
A similar case involving a French centrist party ended up with fines and suspended prison sentences earlier this year.
She could be seen discussing with her lawyers the legal complexities of such a scenario that could hamper, or even destroy, her goal to mount another presidential bid. Le Pen was runner-up to President Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections, and her party’s electoral support has grown in recent years.
Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, Le Pen appeared to prepare the ground for a possible conviction with comments about a guilty verdict she described as foreseeable – yet she said there was no question of renouncing or lowering her political ambitions.
Le Pen could face 10 years in jail and a one million euro fine, if convicted (AP)
“I feel we didn’t succeed in convincing you,” Le Pen told the panel of three judges last week, as she detailed her arguments in a one-hour-and-a-half speech punctuated with political remarks seemingly meant to be heard by the many journalists in the courtroom.
Le Pen denied accusations she had been at the head of “a system” meant to siphon off EU parliament money to the benefit of her party, which she led from 2011 to 2021.
She instead argued the missions of the aides were to be adapted to the MEPs’ various activities, including some highly political missions related to the party.
Parliamentary aide “is a status”, she said. “It says nothing about the job, nothing about the work required, from the secretary to the speechwriter, from the lawyer to the graphic designer, from the bodyguard to the MEP’s office employee.”
Le Pen’s co-defendants — most of whom owe her their political or professional career — testified under her close watch.
Some of the aides provided embarrassed and confused explanations, faced with the lack of evidence their work was in relation with the EU parliament.
Le Pen insisted the party “never had the slightest remonstrance from the Parliament” until a 2015 alert raised by Martin Schulz, then-president of the European body, to French authorities about possible fraudulent use of EU funds by members of the National Front.
“Let’s go back in time. The rules either didn’t exist or were much more flexible,” she said.
Le Pen feared the court would draw wrong conclusions from the party’s ordinary practices she said were legitimate.
“It’s unfair,” she repeated. “When one is convinced that tomato means cocaine, the whole grocery list becomes suspicious!”
Patrick Maisonneuve, lawyer for the European Parliament, said the cost of the suspected embezzlement is estimated to 4.5 million euro (£3.7 million).
“In the past few weeks, it has appeared very clearly that the fraud is, I think, largely established,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
Mr Maisonneuve said some of the defendants seemed to have instructions “to give the same collective answers, as good soldiers, for the party and to save the boss”.
In her last hearing before prosecutors speak on Wednesday, Le Pen called on the judges to see “evidence of (her) innocence”.
“The court can write that we’re messy, sometimes disorganised… It’s not a crime,” she said.