Marine Le Pen defends herself at trial for embezzlement

Photo: Grégoire Campione Agence France-Presse National Rally MP and leader of the French far-right Marine Le Pen arrives at a Paris court for her trial on charges of embezzlement of public funds on Monday.

Marie Dhumieres – Agence France-Presse and Paul Aubriat – Agence France-Presse in Paris

Published at 4:52 p.m.

• Europe

The European Parliament is a “blob that swallows everything”, so we must ensure that elected representatives do not get “eaten”: for her first questioning before the court in Paris, the leader of the French far right, Marine Le Pen, multiplied metaphors on Monday, even if it meant dodging specific questions to defend herself on the political terrain.

“I am being prosecuted before you, with all that this can entail: psychologically, emotionally, politically”. On the seventh day of the hearing and at the start of a fourth hour of questioning, Ms Le Pen stopped pointing fingers and protesting at each accusation for a moment, to play the intimate card.

But the former head of the National Front (FN), which became the National Rally (RN), defended herself tirelessly, suspected of embezzlement of public funds alongside 24 other defendants – including the party as a legal entity – for having set up a system of MEP assistants paid by the European Parliament, for the sole benefit of her political movement.

The court recalled that the issue was the job of assistant to the Parliament of MEP Marine Le Pen, held by Catherine Griset, who was also her chief of staff at the party. She was therefore paid by the European Parliament between 2010 and 2016.

“It's on our envelope,” corrected Marine Le Pen. “Your envelope is not a right, it's Parliament's money,” the president interrupted her.

“It belongs to the voters,” replied Ms Le Pen. To which the president retorted, impassive: “It is made available to the MP on condition that he is able to justify it if asked… It is not a right, we can't do absolutely anything.” Finally, that may be the conception you have of it… »

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“The little beast”

Earlier, the court questioned her about the hiring criteria for her European assistants. “That was 20 years ago,” said Marine Le Pen, wearing a black suit and files placed next to the desk. She said she would have difficulty giving “the details.”

In the dock, she evaded direct questions for more than six hours, but spoke at length about the “context.” She recounted her “beginnings” in the European Parliament, where the FN MEPs “were seven” in 2004, “then three” five years later – there are now thirty.

There was therefore, she explained, “a sort of mutualisation” of assistants who share notes, press reviews or secretarial activities.

“I absolutely do not feel that I have committed the slightest irregularity,” she repeated as she has since the beginning of the trial.

Last week, the court reminded her, the former FN MEP Fernand Le Rachinel “said that there were people who did not work at all,” and “that he had to beg for parliamentary assistants.”

“You are nitpicking,” Marine Le Pen complained to the representatives of the prosecution, when she tirelessly tried to bring the case back to “politics.”

“Closed vase”

“The real question is: the deputy “Does he work for himself ?”, she hammered home. And to answer: “The deputy works for the benefit of his ideas. And who carries their ideas ? Their party”.

What about their assistants, whose salaries are paid by the European Parliament ?

“When parliamentary assistants were not strictly attached to parliamentary tasks, they could work for the party,” Marine Le Pen had let slip to the investigating judge, at the start of the investigation, recalls the European Parliament's lawyer Patrick Maisonneuve.

In the dock, the embarrassment of the three-time unsuccessful presidential candidate was palpable: “These statements are less important than the substance,” she tried to brush off, resuming her argument, in a higher tone, the detachment of the syllables once again reflecting a certain annoyance.

It would be necessary to wait until early evening for the court to get to the heart of the matter, the contract that had bound her for five years to Catherine Griset.

In the prosecution’s grip, the employee’s lack of enthusiasm for going to the premises of the Brussels-Strasbourg institution where she was supposed to be based: 740 minutes, or 12 hours, in just under a year of work. A long debate ensued about time stamps, turnstiles, automatic doors and the friendliness of the security guards – “I didn’t clock in, and neither did my assistants,” conceded Ms Le Pen.

The elected official evaded the court’s questions to develop an astonishing metaphor: “The European Parliament works in such a way that it swallows up MEPs like a blob,” a voracious organism absorbing everything in its path.

“In the European Parliament, you can eat, sleep, go to the hairdresser, there are bars… everything is done so that the MEP lives in a closed environment,” she continues.

So, “the role” of political leaders like her is to say “hello, we're doing politics”, so that elected officials “are not lost to the cause”. “They owe it to the activists who went to put up posters at night, in the rain, sometimes in the snow”, she got carried away.

The hearing is due to resume on Tuesday with the continuation of her questioning.