the prosecution requires 4 years in jail, together with one 12 months, and 5 years of ineligibility in opposition to Marine Le Pen | EUROtoday

After an indictment lasting nearly six hours, Tuesday February 3, the 2 attorneys common requested 4 years in jail, together with one 12 months, and 5 years of ineligibility with out fast execution in opposition to Marine Le Pen on the enchantment trial in Paris within the case of the European parliamentary assistants of the National Front (FN). The determination of the court docket of enchantment, which isn’t required to comply with the requisitions, should be identified by the summer time.

The prosecution thus didn’t require provisional, that’s to say fast, execution of the sentence, opposite to the primary occasion judgment. But this query will in any case be irrelevant as a result of the Court of Cassation, whether it is contacted by Marine Le Pen within the occasion of conviction by the Court of Appeal, ought to render its determination earlier than the presidential election.

The president of the National Rally group within the Assembly was sentenced in March 2025 to 4 years of imprisonment, two of which had been suspended, a 100,000 euro tremendous and 5 years of ineligibility with fast execution, which brought about astonishment within the ranks of the far proper.

In their indictments on Tuesday, the 2 representatives of the prosecution requested the court docket of enchantment “not to combine additional penalties with ineligibility”, that they had been about to require,“provisional execution”that’s to say fast.

With regard to Marine Le Pen, the prosecution highlighted the position she performed within the affair of the FN parliamentary assistants. Justice accuses M^me Le Pen, the National Rally and ten different executives paid, between 2004 and 2016, staff of the occasion, which was then going via monetary difficulties as a result of poor electoral outcomes, utilizing cash from the European Parliament. Of the 25 convicted at first occasion final 12 months, 12 appealed.

“She signed the contracts. She can’t tell us she didn’t know. She was a lawyer and jurist by training”underlined one of many two common legal professionals, Thierry Ramonatxo, about Marine Le Pen, including that she was, in her capability as president of the occasion, “very closely informed” of all questions regarding assistants’ envelopes. “She had a central role as an organizer. It was she who set the rules of internal functioning”he insisted. “Marine Le Pen was the instigator, following her father, of a system which allowed the party to embezzle 1.4 million euros”declared Advocate General Stéphane Madoz-Blanchet particularly.

“Strong dispute”

In addition to Marine Le Pen, the representatives of the prosecution referred to as for the conviction of the eleven different defendants, together with the RN as a authorized entity, responsible in response to them of embezzlement for having arrange a ” system “ between 2004 and 2016, “assumed and managed” and summarized as follows: “parliamentary assistants” MEPs from the far-right motion “worked for the party, but were paid by Europe”.

The attorneys common typically requested the affirmation of the sentences handed down at first occasion, starting from six months suspended for the present RN deputy Timothée Houssin to a few years in jail, together with two suspended, for the previous treasurer Wallerand de Saint-Just.

“What was the purpose? Externalize the cost of staff that the party wanted to keep, but which it could not finance given its situation, to the budget of parliamentary assistants” financial institution, cold after a number of electoral defeats. This ” organization “first described as “artisanal” throughout its implementation by Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2004, was then “professionalized” from 2012 by Marine Le Pen, who had succeeded her father on the head of the occasion a 12 months earlier, hammered the 2 attorneys common, Thierry Ramonatxo and Stéphane Madoz-Blanchet.

The two representatives of the prosecution deplored the truth that the defendants, together with Marine Le Pen, had “used the strategy of delegitimization of counter-powers, and here of justice, the objective of which would be to prevent the accession of a party leader to the highest functions of the executive”.

“To suggest that justice could oppose the will of the sovereign people is inaccurate, it is to forget that the judge is the guardian of the law, and that he only applies it”added the 2 advocates common at first of their indictment, after eleven days of debate earlier than the Paris Court of Appeal which they thought-about “more serene” than at first occasion. “Elective functions are not a refuge from the law, but a summit of demands”warned Stéphane Madoz-Blanchet in flip.

“We are not in a gray zone, we are in a prohibited zone”, assures a civil occasion

Tuesday morning, the legal professionals of the European Parliament, civil occasion, denounced of their pleadings the ” trust [du Parlement dans les députés] betrayed for years, for several million euros”as well as that “taxpayers of the European Union”. “ [Bruno] Gollnisch himself will tell us that there is no system, there was an organization. Mr. Gollnisch finds that the word “organization” is more elegant than the word “system””mocked one of the institution’s lawyers, M^e Patrick Maisonneuve.

Castigating him “façade positioning” defendants at the hearing, who put forward “gray areas” in the rules of the European Parliament on the employment of parliamentary assistants, his other lawyer, M^e Bérénice de Warren, observed to the court that “this is absolutely not the reality of all the files that have been submitted to you”. “We are not in a gray zone, we are in a prohibited zone”she asserted.

The substantive debates, completed on Monday, confirmed the chaotic functioning of the party and its MEPs vis-à-vis these “helpers”. Marine Le Pen, for her part, from the start of the trial, contested any ” intention “ to commit an offense, protesting his “good faith”.

On January 21, at the end of her thirteen-hour interrogation that began the day before, she summarized: “Was it related to the disorganization [du parti] ? Maybe. Did everyone feel like they were committing a crime? I am convinced not. Did the party intentionally commit a crime? I think not.. »