French Police Raid National Rally Offices Over Campaign Finances
No one has been charged in the investigation, which was opened in July 2024 and aims to determine whether the nationalist, anti-immigrant party ran afoul of campaign financing rules, the prosecutor's office said.
Jordan Bardella, the National Rally's president, accused the authorities of harassment and called the raid a threat to 'pluralism and democratic change.' About 20 armed officers from France's financial brigade took part in the raid, which was led by two investigative judges, Mr. Bardella said.
'All the emails, documents and accounting records of the leading opposition party have been seized, even though at this stage we do not know exactly what the allegations are,' Mr. Bardella said on X. 'Never before has an opposition party been so relentlessly attacked under the Fifth Republic.'
The National Rally is the single largest opposition party in France's lower house of Parliament since snap elections last year, and its longtime leader, Marine Le Pen, has unsuccessfully faced off against President Emmanuel Macron in the past two presidential elections.
The Paris prosecutor's office said that the investigation was opened following 'several alerts' from an institutional source about the party's financing of its 2022 presidential and legislative campaigns, as well as its 2024 campaign for the European Parliament elections. It was not immediately clear what that source was.
According to the prosecutor's office, the investigation aims to determine whether those campaigns were financed through illegal loans from private individuals to the party or its candidates, or through inflated or fake invoicing for campaign expenses — which, under French law, are partly reimbursed by the French state. French law authorizes private loans to political parties, but under strict conditions.
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