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French financial police have raided the headquarters of France’s far-right Rassemblement National party in an investigation into the funding of its election campaigns.
Party chief Jordan Bardella said in a post on X that about 20 armed officers of France’s financial police brigade had raided the party’s Paris office on Wednesday morning and seized emails, documents and accounting information that went back to 2022.
“The entirety of the files concerning the recent regional, presidential, parliamentary and European campaigns — all the party’s electoral activity — are today in the hands of the judiciary,” Bardella said.
He said the officers were accompanied by two investigating judges.
The operation comes months after the RN’s three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and other party members were found guilty of embezzling EU funds, potentially blocking her from running for office in 2027 presidential elections. She is appealing against the verdict and says she will still stand to succeed President Emmanuel Macron.
The Paris prosecutor said the raid on Wednesday was part of an investigation that began after “multiple alerts from an institutional source” alleging that the party illegally funded its campaigns using loans from supporters.
“The judicial investigation aims to determine whether these campaigns were financed through illegal loans from individuals benefiting the party or its candidates, as well as through overbilling of services or invoicing for fake services that were later included in the reimbursement requests submitted to the state for campaign expenses,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Loans from supporters are not illegal as long as their use is not “habitual” and the money is reimbursed within a certain length of time.
They are not subject to the French electoral system’s usual strict donation caps, which are scrupulously audited by the campaign watchdog. Individuals can only donate €7,500 per year per political party, and €4,600 per election per candidate.
Given its chronic difficulties in securing loans from French banks to finance campaigns, the RN has several times asked supporters to take part in so-called “patriotic lending schemes” in which they contribute a minimum of €500, to be reimbursed later with interest.
Speaking to AFP at the European parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, Bardella said: “No French bank wanted to lend money to the Rassemblement National to finance its electoral campaigns, so it’s quite incredible to reproach the Rassemblement National for financing itself and to have loans that are perfectly legal.”
Prosecutors are now looking into whether some of those loans were too large and lasted too long, in violation of campaign financing rules.
The investigation is another blow to Le Pen and the RN, both already reeling since her embezzlement conviction. The legal woes have called into question her long uncontested role as the leader of the far-right party her father founded decades ago, and led to new fissures within it.
Le Pen and the 29-year-old Bardella have both said that he would run for president if she was prevented from doing so. But their once-solid mutual loyalty is now under pressure.
On a trip to the French overseas territory of New Caledonia last month, Le Pen slapped down a question from journalists over why Bardella was not with her. “I am not sure Jordan is very familiar with the problems of New Caledonia. We have different talents,” she said with irritation.
Of the raid on Wednesday, Bardella said: “This spectacular and unprecedented operation is clearly a new [kind of] harassment. It’s a serious attack on pluralism and democratic transition. An opposition party has never suffered such persecution under the Fifth Republic.”
In recent days, media have reported that the European parliament is also investigating allegations that the RN’s parliamentary group committed wrongdoing by granting money without sufficient controls to charities and organisations that were sympathetic to its ideals. The EU parliament was at the origin of the embezzlement case that led to Le Pen’s conviction.
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