The 2022 presidential campaign of Marine Le Pen (National Rally, far right) in France is the subject of an investigation into suspicions of illegal financing, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday, confirming information from BFMTV television.
Following a preliminary investigation, an investigation was opened on July 2 for loan of a legal person to a candidate during an election campaign, acceptance by a candidate during an election campaign of a loan from a legal person, misappropriation of property by persons exercising a public function, fraud committed to the detriment of a public person, forgery and use of forged documents, the prosecution explained.
The commission responsible for monitoring the regularity of candidates’ expenses, which are capped and part of which is reimbursed by the State, sent a report to the Paris public prosecutor’s office in 2023.
The investigations, entrusted to the financial brigade of the Paris judicial police, “are now continuing under the direction of an investigating magistrate,” added the public prosecutor.
No details were given on the nature of the suspicions.
In mid-December 2022, the National Commission for Campaign Accounts and Political Financing (CNCCFP) rejected the “flocking and deflocking” expenses of twelve buses rented as part of the campaign of the leader of the National Rally (RN), for an amount of 316,182 euros.
She considered that the use of this type of display constituted an irregular expense.
Marine Le Pen had invested nearly 11.5 million euros in her 2022 presidential campaign, her third. She was beaten in the second round by Emmanuel Macron.
In 2017, she had already seen 873,576 euros of her expenses rejected by the Commission, 95% of which consisted of loans taken out from the National Front (FN, now RN) and the micro-party of her father Jean-Marie Le Pen.
In June, the Court of Cassation definitively upheld the RN’s conviction for overcharging for campaign kits used by National Front candidates during the 2012 legislative elections and reimbursed by the State.
Marine Le Pen, re-elected as a member of parliament in the first round of early legislative elections on June 30 in her stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont in the north of France, must also be tried with 24 other people and the RN from September 30 for embezzlement of European funds in connection with the remuneration of MEPs’ assistants between 2004 and 2016.