Jordan Bardella accused of helping to produce “false proof of work”

According to a book to be published by a journalist from “Libération”, the current head of the National Rally was one of these fictitious assistants, paid by the European Union but employed by the far-right party.

He will not be in the dock, but the case catches up with him. In a book to be published on September 13, the president of the National Rally (RN), Jordan Bardella, is accused of having contributed to fabricating “fake proof of work” For “to deceive justice and justify” his job as a European parliamentary assistant. “The young Le Penist was paid by Europe but employed by the RN”writes the author of the book, the journalist Tristan Berteloot, Monday, September 9, in Releasethe daily newspaper for which he works.

Marine Le Pen has been summoned to appear in court from 30 September with 26 other people and the RN (formerly the FN before changing its name in June 2018), cited as a legal entity, to shed light on suspicions of misappropriation of European funds between 2004 and 2016. The defendants are being prosecuted for having set up a system during this period of remuneration by the EU of assistants of MEPs who were in reality working for the far-right party. Marine Le Pen, who has always contested these accusations, is being targeted for misappropriation of public funds and complicity. She risks in particular a five-year ineligibility sentence.

Jordan Bardella is not among the 12 former parliamentary assistants tried in this case. However, according to the forthcoming book The Winning Machinehis name appears in theorganization chart of the National Front published in February 2015 and which has “motivated the European Parliament to refer the matter to the French courts”The current party leader is referred to as “mission manager” with Florian Philippot, former vice-president of the FN, while he is also “supposed to be the local parliamentary assistant of MEP Jean-François Jalkh”.

For this mission of “four and a half months”Jordan Bardella has “received a monthly net salary of 1,200 euros”or a cost of “10,444 euros” for the European authorities, writes the journalist of Release. According to the words of former MEP Aymeric Chauprade, who fell out with the RN, reported by the daily, Jordan Bardella has never “really [exercé] his functions” parliamentary assistant.

At the end of 2017, two years after the French prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into this affair, the team of the rising star of the RN, then spokesperson for the party and soon to be a candidate in the 2019 European elections, will “prepare a dossier of fictitious evidence, backdated to the period when Jordan Bardella was employed as an assistant”advance Tristan BertelootThe file in question consists of a regional press review. “covering the contract period” as a parliamentary assistant from February to June 2015, supposed to inform MEP Jean-François Jalkh about events in the region.

Problem, relief Release : “the search date” was covered with “white”. On these documents, Jordan Bardella “hand-wrote the words ‘local politics’, ‘miscellaneous’, ‘society'”, adds the newspaper. Release cites in particular in support a message from an intern working for the Belgian lawyer Ghislain Dubois, who is said to have declared during an exchange on a messaging service with former members of the party that he had “created false files for assistants who never worked for the European Parliament”Contacted by AFP, Ghislan Dubois was not immediately available to respond.

In a press release from the RN published on Monday, “Jordan Bardella formally contests” these “false accusations”The party defends itself against these accusations and explains that“While he was still a student, Jordan Bardella was employed part-time, from 16 February to 30 June 2015, for a net salary of 1,200 euros (…) and worked in this context, without any infringement or irregularity, either with regard to the rules of the European Parliament or French law”.

“After hearing Jean-François Jalkh, neither the European Parliament nor OLAF [l’Office européen de lutte anti-fraude]nor the French justice system found fault with it. No supporting documents were requested and a fortiori submitted to the courts”declares the National Rally, considering that “No one will be fooled by this crude attempt at destabilization” three weeks before the start of the trial. The European Parliament assessed his damages at €6.8 million in 2018.