French police raid far-right party HQ over campaign financing

Arab News

4 days ago

PARIS: The leader of France's National Rally (RN) said police seized documents from the far-right party's headquarters Wednesday, a raid prosecutors said was linked to a French probe into alleged illegal campaign financing.
It is the latest legal trouble for the party of Marine Le Pen, the longtime standard bearer of the French far right, which has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years.
The 56-year-old politician, who has three times run for president, suffered a stunning blow in March when a French court convicted her and other party officials over an EU parliament fake jobs scam.
The ruling, which Le Pen has appealed, banned her from standing for office for five years, effectively scuppering her ambition of running in France's 2027 presidential elections.
Le Pen has asked her top lieutenant, 29-year-old party leader and European Parliament member Jordan Bardella, to prepare to campaign in her place.
'RN headquarters — including the offices of its leaders — are being searched by around 20 police officers from the financial brigade,' Bardella said on X on Wednesday morning.
Police accompanied by two investigating magistrates had seized 'all emails, documents and accounting' records of the party, he added.
They included 'all files related to the last regional, presidential, parliamentary and European (election) campaigns,' Bardella said, denouncing what he called 'a new harassment operation.'
The Paris prosecutor's office said police had raided the party's offices as part of an investigation launched in July last year into alleged illegal campaign financing for the 2022 presidential and parliamentary elections, as well as the European Parliament elections last year.
The investigation seeks to 'determine whether these campaigns were notably funded through illegal loans from individuals to the party or RN candidates,' the prosecutor's office added.
It said it would also look into allegations the party had included inflated or fake invoices in its claims for the state to reimburse campaign expenses.
Police also searched the offices and homes of several company bosses on Wednesday as part of the investigation, which covers the period from January 2020 to July 2024, it said.
Under French law, a person can give a maximum of 7,500 euros ($8,800) per year to a political party.
Loans are allowed, but only within certain conditions and limits, according to a national commission in charge of scrutinizing campaign financing called the CNCCFP.
They should not be 'a disguised donation,' for example.
By the end of 2023, the RN had racked up 20 million euros in loans from individuals, with the earliest dating back to 2007, the CNCCFP says.
In a separate case, the European Union's prosecutor said Tuesday it has launched a formal investigation into a defunct far-right group, which included France's RN, over the alleged misuse of European Parliament funds.
According to the reports by a consortium of European media, most of the allegedly misused funds benefited companies belonging to a former adviser to Le Pen and his wife.
Le Pen has challenged her May conviction at the Paris Appeals Court, which has said it will examine the case to allow a decision to be reached in the summer of 2026.
This means she could still stand in the 2027 elections — if the verdict is reversed or amended.
She also sought an urgent ruling from the European Court for Human Rights to lift her ban on standing for public office.
The court threw out the request on Wednesday, stating it saw no 'imminent risk of irreparable harm to a right' protected by the European human rights convention.