New allegations of financial irregularities in the European Parliament (EP) involving Marie Le Pen‘s National Rally (RN) party surfaced in major European newspapers yesterday.
Citing a confidential parliamentary report, Le Monde, Die Zeit and Falter carried stories yesterday suggesting that the no longer functioning far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) group may have misspent upwards of 4 million euros during the last EP session.
Le Pen’s party features in the investigation, which also cites Flemish infractions.
Along with allies from the since disbanded ID group, the National Rally is reportedly suspected of having “unduly spent” more than 4.3 million euros between 2019 and 2024, according to the investigative report compiled by the EP’s financial affairs department.
Most of the money reportedly ended up in companies with ties to Le Pen’s close associates, former advisor Frédéric Chatillon and his wife Sighild Blanc. A communications agency, e-Politic, received 1.7 million euros on the basis of a “purely formal” tender process that the Brussels inspectors said had “serious compliance issues.” They questioned expenses they deemed to be “irregular” and were similarly sceptical of a transaction involving the Unanime company, which made more than 1.4 million euros for printing work that was then subcontracted at a lower cost.
The latest revelations come within months of a French court having convicted Le Pen and 20 other members of her party on charges of having embezzled EU funds intended for parliamentary assistants. Speaking to RTL France yesterday, Le Pen said she was “not aware of the new accusations.”
The investigative report also listed donations totalling 700,000 euros that were paid to associations whose activities seemed unrelated to the European Parliament. Projects such as the sterilisation of stray cats or the renovation of a parish church were often linked to individual ID MEPs.
According to the Belgian weekly Knack, the investigative report also named the Flemish nationalist student organisation KVHV as having received 30,140 euros. KVHV Ghent, a non-profit organisation, had been registered at the personal address of Vlaams Belang MEP Tom Vandendriessche, chairman of the KVHV board of directors.
Belgian federal police are investigating the possible misuse of European funds by Vandendriessche, the European public prosecutor’s office stated. The Vlaams Belang party, which was part of the ID group in the previous legislature, has denied any wrongdoing. “All payments from the past five years have been properly invoiced, justified and checked,” a senior official told Le Monde.
