French police raided the headquarters of Marine Le Pen’s Front National party on Monday as part of an investigation into alleged misuse of European Union funds to pay parliamentary assistants. The European parliament has accused Ms Le Pen, a French presidential candidate and MEP, of paying FN party staff with EU funds which it says should only be spent on European parliamentary assistants. It has demanded Ms Le Pen pay back nearly €340,000 (£290,000) and, faced with her refusal to repay the money, has said it will start docking her salary in order to recover the funds. The search at the far-Right party’s headquarters in Nanterre, west of Paris, was confirmed by FN officials, who said it was the second time the offices had been raided. They accused the French judiciary of conducting a political smear campaign.
“It looks on the face of it like a media operation whose goal is to disturb the course of the presidential campaign and to seek to harm Marine Le Pen at a time when her candidacy is making an important surge in voter intentions,” the FN said in a statement.
A French probe into “abuse of trust” and concealment, as well as “embezzlement in an organised gang”, as well as fraud and concealed work was opened on December 15 following a complaint by the EU parliament.
Last Friday, Ms Le Pen furiously rejected reports that she had admitted to giving her bodyguard a fake job as EU parliamentary aide.
Full Article: Police raid Marine Le Pen’s Front National party HQ in EU fake jobs probe.