French investigators have opened an inquiry into the campaign finances of the far-right leader Marine Le Pen during her failed 2022 presidential election bid against Emmanuel Macron, as politicians on the left continue to discuss how a new government could be formed in France.
The Paris prosecutors’ office announced on Tuesday that an investigation had been opened last week to examine allegations over Le Pen’s campaigning funding, which include embezzlement, forgery, fraud, and a further allegation that a candidate on an electoral campaign accepted a loan. No further details were given.
Le Pen and her party have previously denied wrongdoing in connection with campaign financing.
The preliminary investigation was opened after a national commission in charge of scrutinising campaign finances, the CNCCFP, had alerted the prosecutor’s office last year.
The 2022 election was the second time Le Pen, who was then head of the anti-immigration, far-right National Rally (RN) party, faced Macron in the runoff and lost to him.
In December 2022, the commission had objected to expenses linked to putting up and taking down campaigning material on 12 buses, describing them as “irregular”. Le Pen had appealed but then dropped the case.
French politicians continue to ponder how to form a government after Le Pen’s far right was held back by tactical voting in the final round of a snap election on Sunday night, but no grouping has won an absolute majority.
The leftwing alliance, the New Popular Front (NFP) – a coalition which runs from the firmly leftwing La France Insoumise to the Greens, Communists and more centre-left Socialists – is still debating who to put forward as a potential prime minister and whether it could be open to working in a broader coalition.
But although the left was slightly ahead of Macron’s centrist grouping and Le Pen’s far-right RN, it remains about 100 seats short of an absolute majority. Parliament is now divided between three closely balanced political forces: the left, centrists and the far right.
Whoever governs would need some form of coalition. It is not certain that a prime minister from the left would survive a confidence vote in parliament.
Any left-leaning government would need “broader support in the National Assembly”, the Socialist MP Boris Vallaud told France Inter.
“None of the three leading blocs can govern alone,” Stéphane Séjourné, head of Macron’s Renaissance party, wrote in Le Monde. He suggested the centrist bloc could now try to form its own coalition and join with some parts of the centre left while refusing to work with others who are further left.
“The centrist bloc is ready to talk to all the members of the republican spectrum,” he added, saying any coalition members must support the EU and Ukraine and maintain business-friendly policies. These requirements, he said, would “necessarily exclude” La France Insoumise and its firebrand founder Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
After a meeting of the centrist group, the Renaissance lawmaker Pierre Cazeneuve told Reuters: “We have reaffirmed our red lines: No deal with La France Insoumise and no deal with the National Rally.”
Gabriel Attal is staying on as prime minister while the country remains without a new government, but discussions on how to form some kind of coalition could take weeks.
Macron called the snap election last month after his centrists were trounced by the far right in European elections. He said at the time that the nation needed “clarity”. But the political uncertainty could drag on over the summer.
Mélenchon on Tuesday accused Macron of deliberately “blocking the situation to keep power for as long as possible”.
The Socialist leader Olivier Faure said he would be prepared for his name to be put forward for prime minister, but added: “That would be decided in dialogue with our partners. I don’t agree with anyone imposing their point of view on others.”
Yaël Braun-Pivet, the centrist former leader of parliament, told France Inter radio: “Mathematically, democratically, no one can govern alone today.” She said a coalition of different parties should agree on a handful of priority projects for the next year.
