The European Parliament will be reclaiming embezzled funds from French far-right presidential election candidate Marine Le Pen following a report from the EU's anti-fraud body OLAF, partly published by Mediapart.
One week before Le Pen is set to take on incumbent Emmanuel Macron in the second round of the French presidential election, OLAF reported she misappropriated nearly €137,000 in funds when she was an EU lawmaker for the far-right Front National, now renamed Rassemblement National, between 2004 and 2017.
Now, the European Parliament is planning to claw back wrongly paid money, one spokesperson told the French press agency AFP. "In the coming weeks, the money will be reclaimed from those involved."
Paris prosecutors told the German DPA news agency they were studying the accusations against Le Pen and her party contained in a report from OLAF, according to reports from Deutsche Welle.
More than €600,000
Alongside Le Pen, three other former FN MEPs – including her father Jean-Marie Le Pen and her ex-partner Louis Aliot – allegedly also used funds released by the Parliament for assistants for national political purposes, personal expenses and services to commercial companies closely linked to FN and other right-wing populist groups in the EU.
According to OLAF, the total amount involved was more than €600,000, of which €137,000 was paid by Le Pen.
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These are not the first such claims against the presidential candidate. Since 2017, she has also been under investigation on suspicion of handing out false jobs to party members as assistants in the Parliament.
In the Mediapart report, Le Pen's lawyer denied the accusations, and raised suspicions over the "timing" of the report, adding that Le Pen "has not been summoned by the French judicial authority."
Defaced election posters in Paris. Credit: Ugo Realfonzo/ The Brussels Times
On Wednesday evening, Le Pen is scheduled to face Macron in a live TV debate. According to a poll published Saturday by Ipsos-Sopra Steria Poll, Macron is set to win the second round with a 55.5% share of the vote.
