On Monday 31 March in Strasbourg, MEPs were relatively sober about the verdict handed down that morning by the Paris Court, which found Marine Le Pen and eight other members of the Rassemblement national party, including six former MEPs and Nicolas Bay (who is now a Member of ECR group), guilty of misappropriating public funds, in this case European funds, and imposed a five-year ineligibility sentence on the leader of the political group in the French National Assembly.
While the European Parliament has taken “good note” of this ruling, the MEPs have refused to organise a further debate on the subject at this new plenary session, which runs until 3 April.
“The objective of our civil action, as is done in all similar cases, has always been to safeguard European taxpayers’ funds and the budget of the European Parliament, in line with our mandate and governing rules”, commented spokeswoman Delphine Collard, refusing to comment further “on any other aspects of the trial, the judgment or a possible appeal process at this stage”.
The Romanian MEP from the EPP group, Siegfried Mureșan, who co-authored the report on the future EU budget, said that EU funds “belong to the people, not to corrupt, anti-European extremists. The charges against Le Pen confirm what we already knew: extremists are not genuine, and they certainly do not act for the people. The increase in the number of politicians who attack the Rule of law and misuse EU funds means we need better laws and better enforcement to protect people and public funds. This is why we need strong safeguards for EU funds”.
For Valérie Hayer, Renew Europe’s French leader, “the courts have made their decision. In a state governed by the Rule of law, no one can be above the law. They apply to everyone equally and must be respected. There is no free pass”. ”While the courts have made their decision today and the Rassemblement national has finally been found guilty, the dangerous nature of the far-right’s ideas and programme remains, more than ever”, said Mélissa Camara (Greens/EFA, French).
“The question of eligibility or not is of little importance. What must guide our action today is the imperative need to block the far right’s path to power. It is stronger than ever in Europe and in France. And a potential accession to power would be an absolute disaster”.
For his part, German MEP Daniel Freund (Greens/EFA) asked at the opening of the plenary session for a debate to be added to the agenda, likening the news from Paris to news that could concern “the mafia”. In his view, the French courts have clearly established that this was “an organised system”.
The PfE group, led by French MEP Jean-Paul Garraud, also called for a debate, but this time on the “attack on democracy and the will of the European people”.
The two proposals were largely rejected, with the EPP also pointing out that a debate on corruption in public life has been included on the agenda. It was initially intended to focus on the allegations against Huawei and was due to start late in the evening of Monday 31 March.
For his part, Xavier-François Bellamy (EPP, French) said that “whatever we think of the RN and the case that has been decided, this date will remain a very dark day for French democracy. The candidate, whom the polls put in the lead in the presidential election, is prevented from competing by a court ruling: this unprecedented event will leave deep scars”.
The S&D group had not yet decided to react at the time of going to press.
Criticism of the European Parliament. Transparency International EU “has been following this case, and others like it, for years, and the exposure of Le Pen’s fraud scheme is a welcome one. Nevertheless, given the European Parliament’s lax attitude to how its MEP allowances are spent, today’s verdict can’t be seen as putting an end to corrupt practices at the institution”, reacted the NGO.
The European Parliament “does not take a systematic approach to eliminating corruption within its own walls. Indeed, a 2023 investigation by Follow the Money revealed how almost 140 MEPs misused, misspent EU Parliament allowances.
“And yet the Parliament still does not require any proof of how the general expenditure allowance granted to each MEP, which amounts to €4,950 per MEP per month, has been spent”. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)