Marine Le Pen and other senior figures within France’s far-right National Rally party are standing trial on charges of having embezzled millions in European Parliament funds to finance the party’s own political activities. Marta Lorimer, lecturer in politics at Cardiff University, discusses what the trial could mean for the party’s future – and Le Pen’s own presidential ambitions.
The nine-week trial of Marine Le Pen and her far-right National Rally (RN) party opened in Paris on Monday, promising more than two months of very public scrutiny of the party’s use of European Parliament funds over more than a decade.
Le Pen and more than two dozen figures within the party stand accused of having embezzled millions of euros in European Parliament funding to finance the party’s private political activities, funnelling money meant for parliamentary assistants to instead pay the salaries of party staffers that the cash-strapped RN – previously known as the National Front – was otherwise struggling to afford.
The consequences could be severe. If found guilty, each of the co-defendants could be sentenced to up to a decade in prison, or face fines upwards of a million euros each. Le Pen herself is facing the threat of being barred from running for public office for up to ten years, putting her long-held presidential ambitions in jeopardy.
Le Pen and her co-defendants have repeatedly denied the allegations, saying that the staffers in question were legitimately employed as parliamentary aides. The RN has paid back more than one million euros to the EU parliament, an act that it maintains is in no way an admission of guilt.
Le Pen has gone head-to-head with French President Emmanuel Macron in the final round of two previous presidential elections, each time inching closer towards the Elysée Palace. With Macron’s public support at an all-time low, the 2027 presidential election is seen by many as Le Pen’s to lose.
The trial – which has been in the making since the allegations were first raised in 2015 – comes at the height of the far-right party’s power. The RN won historic support in the European elections earlier this year, prompting a humiliated Macron to call snap legislative elections in the hopes of catching his rising adversaries off guard.
Instead, the RN handily won the first round of the elections, only to fall to third place in the second round as left-wing and centrist voters backed each other’s candidates where necessary to block the party’s ascent. Although the left-wing New Popular Front coalition holds the most seats in the National Assembly, the RN is now the largest single party in the lower house.
Now, after months of political deadlock, the RN holds the whip hand over the newly formed government of arch-conservative Michel Barnier. The party has threatened to join forces with the left in the National Assembly to topple the fragile government with a no-confidence vote if it strays from their uncompromising anti-immigration agenda.
With the party wielding unprecedented political power within the fractured republic, a highly public embezzlement trial stretching over nine weeks seems like it couldn’t have come at a worse time.
FRANCE 24 spoke with Marta Lorimer, lecturer in politics at Cardiff University and a specialist in far-right movements in France and Italy, about what the trial could mean for the RN’s political ambitions.
FRANCE 24: The opening of this trial comes at a moment when the RN is more influential than it has ever been before, effectively holding the fate of the Barnier government in its hands. What impact, if any, will it have on the party’s ability to pursue its agenda under the new government?
Marta Lorimer: The National Rally is probably not very happy with the timing of this trial – because of the risks associated with it. The absolute worst thing that could happen in this trial is that Le Pen is not able to run – she could be judged ineligible for up to ten years.
I doubt they would go for the ten years, but even if she is declared ineligible for one year, two years, or if she has to appeal the decision, this really puts her in a difficult position for the next legislative elections – presumably happening within the next year – and for the presidential election in 2027, depending on exactly when the ineligibility would start.
So I think that for the party it is absolutely not a great time. Then again, I don’t think there is ever a good time for this kind of trial to hit them.
FRANCE 24: The RN has been consistently critical of the EU and its institutions, painting it as an antidemocratic body of bureaucrats that prevents member states from acting in their own national interests. To what extent does this trial, directly pitting the RN against the EU, play into this narrative, and what are the chances that it increases Le Pen’s support among her broadly eurosceptic base?
Lorimer: I think what’s interesting about this trial of course is that the National Rally is using everything in its power to basically suggest that this is not your standard judiciary trial, but that it is a deeply political one – so that the reason that they are being persecuted is that they are being critical of the European Union.
I don’t know how much that narrative will fly given that the MoDems, which are very pro-EU, faced very similar trials recently. But their base is likely to buy into the narrative that if there is a sanction that is particularly strong, there are political reasons behind that. [Editor’s note: centrist politician François Bayrou was acquitted in February of similar charges of embezzling money meant for parliamentary aides, having pleaded ignorance of the scheme. Eight people among the accused were fined and issued with suspended prison sentences, and the MoDem party was ordered to pay back €350,000]
Read moreHow far to the right? France's new centre-right coalition
And that could actually work against the National Rally. There’s this idea that because some of the new voters it has acquired are more your standard conservatives, more law and order types, they would probably not be particularly happy with a leader who’s been convicted of embezzlement.
But it just seems to me that it’s unlikely to have that effect – I do suspect that the way most supporters of the National Rally will read this is that if it’s true that the National Rally misused EU funds, well, that’s probably good, because we don’t really like the EU. It’s not really a crime if you steal from a criminal.
So I think that might be some of the reading that they get, and that part of it is politically motivated, and that the timing has been set so as to ruin the party. So I think there’s a variety of ways that they can use this to actually stoke even more anger in their political base.
FRANCE 24: We’ve seen these kinds of charges have a serious impact on the political future of French politicians at the national level, such as the fake job scandal involving former French prime minister François Fillon and his wife. How heavily are these charges likely to weigh on the mind of the average French voter?
Lorimer: It seems to me that they are unlikely to weigh particularly heavily on them. With Fillon, it was very easy to see it as “someone rich does something bad”. And that is particularly strong at the national level, something that is felt very strongly.
I think with what the National Rally [allegedly] did, there’s probably going to be some sympathy from its electorate concerning the fact that the reason they did this was partly because the party had no money. But also, they were doing political work, or work that is associated with the party. I mean, their voters didn’t care when they got money from Russia, so that’s the baseline we’re talking about.
But I think the idea is that they were just using a different pot of money to pay for them. And again, if you don’t recognise the authority of the European Union, why would you care if the money isn’t being better spent focusing on your national priorities?
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
