Following the trial that resulted in Marine Le Pen and her party, the Rassemblement National (RN), receiving a severe sentence for misuse of public funds in the European parliamentary assistants affair, the European Parliament is demanding that the French party pay €3.5 million in damages. This demand places the party, which is in a fragile financial position and subject to banking restrictions, in a very delicate situation ahead of the upcoming presidential election.
For Marine Le Pen, the conviction clearly has two objectives: to prevent her from standing and to suffocate her political party. According to her, the financial sentence “jeopardises the future” of her party. “It’s not just about eliminating the presidential candidate. If we can kill the party at the same time, then of course we’re in a good position,” she said ironically when the verdict was handed down.
According to information from BFM TV, the European Parliament, which joined the French judicial investigation as a civil party, is claiming €3.5 million in damages from France’s leading right-wing party. The total damage has been estimated at €4.5 million, but the RN has already paid €1 million during the proceedings. The claimed amount includes legal fees (€80,000), compensation for moral damage (€200,000), and compensation for economic damage (approximately €3.250 million).
In a statement, the European Parliament explained that the amounts claimed for “misuse of public funds” had been wrongfully taken from European taxpayers: “In this sense, European citizens and French taxpayers are just as much victims in this case as the European Parliament.”
Now that the judges have ruled in favour of immediate enforcement of the sentence, the appeal filed by Marine Le Pen does not suspend payment of the amounts claimed. The party has nevertheless requested that the payments be spread out over time.
These payments are in addition to the fines owed to the Treasury at the end of the trial, amounting to €1 million.
The sum to be raised is colossal for a party experiencing significant structural financial difficulties.
Under French electoral law, the RN can count on a significant portion of public funds for its financing, allocated proportional to its results in the first round of legislative elections. However, in the past, this contribution has not always been sufficient to cover all its expenses, and the party has had to resort to borrowing. For many years, however, the RN has faced almost systematic obstruction from French banks in obtaining loans, sometimes forcing it to resort to loans from foreign banks—something for which the French media subsequently criticised it heavily, with a certain degree of bad faith. In September 2023, after ten years, the RN finally managed to pay off a loan from a Czech-Russian bank, which cost it dearly in terms of its political image.
Today, the RN’s financial situation is more stable but remains tense. The party’s current finances allow it to pay the sums demanded, but will obviously hamper its ability to finance its presidential campaign from its own resources.