French police took part this Tuesday in an operation coordinated by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) against providers and structures linked to Rassemblement National (RN). The , as part of an investigation into the alleged misuse of European Parliament funds during the period of the former Identity and Democracy (ID) group.
The investigation points to a possible embezzlement of around €4.3 million between 2019 and 2024. The raids took place in France, Belgium, Italy and Spain, and form part of a case opened by the EPPO following an internal European Parliament audit into contracts, donations and services financed with EU public money.
Depuis tôt ce matin, des perquisitions sont en cours aux sièges et aux domiciles personnels de prestataires de communication ayant travaillé avec nous.
— Jordan Bardella (@J_Bardella) June 30, 2026
Dans le même temps, Le Canard enchaîné nous apprend également l’ouverture prochaine d’une information judiciaire me…
Formally, the case is not exceptional. In investigations into possible fraud involving European funds, police entries, the seizure of documents, and searches of contractor companies are standard tools. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office has jurisdiction precisely over this type of case when the Union’s financial interests are at stake.
What is striking about this kind of action against parties opposed to the Brussels establishment is the political calendar that contaminates it.
RN is not a marginal party facing a minor investigation. It is France’s leading national force in voting intention and the axis of the patriotic bloc in the European Parliament, as the party with the largest number of MEPs.
Marine Le Pen’s case is still pending ahead of the 2027 presidential election, while Jordan Bardella is already emerging as the direct alternative if the criminal route definitively closes the path for the party’s historic leader.
This is the key point. The investigation may have a documentary basis, and it will be for the courts to determine whether there were fictitious contracts or irregular financing. But it is also evident that every investigation and judicial action against RN arrives at a moment of maximum electoral tension.
It happened with other procedures linked to European funds, and it is happening again now, as Le Pen and Bardella’s party remains ahead in the polls and as the French political system searches for a formula to contain a victory that no longer seems impossible.
The strategy against RN is the usual one: part of the institutional apparatus uses financial files as a means of political attrition. Its opponents respond that the patriotic right wants to govern France while it is discrediting itself over the use of European public money. The two readings coexist because the problem is no longer merely legal, but institutional.
For years, Brussels has built a funding system for European political groups that, in practice, allows communication, consultancy, and ideological mobilisation networks to be sustained around the political families of Parliament. When that ecosystem is used by traditional parties, it is presented as European democratic activity. When it is used by the patriotic right, it is examined under full public scrutiny, making clear once again that in the EU what matters is not what is done, but who does it.