A Paris prosecutor has requested a five-year prison sentence and a five-year ban from public office for the far-right leader Marine Le Pen, at a trial in which she and 24 others are accused of embezzling EU funds.
The trial, which comes almost a decade after initial investigations started, threatens to undermine her National Rally (RN) party’s efforts to polish its image before the 2027 presidential election, which many believe she could win.
On Wednesday, the Paris prosecutor requested a €300,000 (£249,439) fine, five years in prison and an ineligibility sentence against Le Pen, with provisional execution – meaning the ban on running for public office would take immediate effect.
If the court finds her guilty of the charges with this provisional execution, Le Pen will not be able to run in elections even if she appeals against the judgment.
The trial runs until 27 November, after which the judges will retire to consider their verdict and consider what sentence to hand down, taking into account the prosecutor’s requests. The verdict is likely to be announced in early 2025.
Le Pen, the RN party, and 24 others – party officials, employees, former lawmakers and parliamentary assistants – are accused of using European parliament money to pay staff in France who were working for their party, which at the time was called the National Front.
The RN, like other far-right parties across the continent, is riding high after a strong performance in European elections in June.
“The law applies to all”, the prosecutor Nicolas Barret told the court, as Le Pen sat in the front row of the defendants’ benches, adding that the ban would “prohibit the defendants from running in future local or national elections”.
He demanded a five-year jail sentence for Le Pen, calling for at least two years of that to be a “convertible” custodial sentence, meaning there would be a possibility of partial release.
“I think the prosecutors’ wish is to deprive the French people of the ability to vote for who they want,” Le Pen later said.
The alleged fake jobs system, which was first flagged in 2015, covers parliamentary assistant contracts between 2004 and 2016. Prosecutors say the assistants worked exclusively for the party outside parliament.
Addressing the trial last month, Le Pen said she was innocent. “I have absolutely no sense of having committed the slightest irregularity, or the slightest illegal act,” she said.
Questioned last month about how exactly she selected her presumed parliamentary aides, and what their tasks were, Le Pen gave general answers, or said she could not remember.
If convicted, Le Pen would be able to lodge an appeal.
European parliament authorities said the legislature had lost €3m through the jobs scheme. The RN has paid back €1m, which it says is not an admission of guilt.
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
