The president of France’s National Rally (RN) party, Jordan Bardella, is reportedly the subject of an official inquiry into how he financed his run for a seat in last year’s European parliamentary elections.
The newspaper Le Monde claims France’s National Campaign Accounts Commission is looking into how the far-right candidate borrowed more than four million euros from individuals to finance his campaign in possible violation of the electoral code.
Bardella, an alternative RN candidate in France’s 2027 presidential election, should Marine Le Pen prove unable to run, is under scrutiny by the National Commission for Campaign Accounts and Political Financing for a series of loans to back his June 2024 European election campaign, according to public documents analysed by Le Monde.
RN has been cited frequently over the last 15 years for allegedly circumventing political financing rules. Marine Le Pen and various party officials were found culpable in the case involving European parliamentary assistants in March. Before that, the party was deemed to have overcharged in the campaign kit scandal in 2012.
Bardella’s situation is being closely monitored by the authority charged with ensuring the integrity of elections in France, which had previously noted irregularities in the accounts of other RN candidates in elections between 2021 and 2023. Commission president Jean-Philippe Vachia has acknowledged repeatedly its inability to verify the actual origin of the funds officially loaned to the candidates.
With the exception of presidential elections, loans can be granted by French or foreign individuals to candidates or parties under terms of the 2017 law on confidence in political life. However, such loans must be repaid since otherwise they would constitute disguised donations. Nor can they be made habitually by the same lender. These stipulations exist to prevent a candidate or party becoming indebted to and dependent on large private creditors who might find themselves able to influence campaigns and policies as a result.
In publicly validating the 2024 European election candidate accounts last month, the Commission noted that RN leader Bardella “borrowed the total sum of 4,470,212 euros from 225 individuals”. According to the Commission, some of the lenders had already granted loans to other RN candidates “and even to Mr. Bardella during other elections”.
Based on the latest established procedure, the public prosecutor’s office must be notified “whenever the same lender has granted at least five loans, spread over one or more elections, for a total amount equal to or greater than 75,000 euros”.
For its part, the National Rally denies any irregularity. “We are using loans from individuals because French banks systematically refuse to lend to lists supported by the RN and its candidates, as the democracy bank promised by Emmanuel Macron [has] still not seen the light of day”, the party told Le Monde.
Moreover, the party points out that there is no legislative or regulatory text defining “a habitual loan, in terms of duration, number of loans or amounts”. RN maintains that election campaigns constitute a unique operation, “which defeats the notion of ‘habitual’ “. Regarding the identity of Bardella’s 2024 campaign creditors, the RN says they “are all of French nationality and resident in France”, with the exception of two residing “in Belgium and Denmark”.
Unlike other political parties, loans are key for RN candidates and for financing the party, accounting for more than half of the loans made by individuals to all political parties in 2022. The Commission has asked the Paris prosecutor’s office to investigate how the RN financed itself from private creditors between 2020 and 2023.
The public prosecutor has confirmed to Le Monde the existence of an investigation into suspicions of “habitual lending from a natural person to a political party” and “acceptance by a party of loans habitually made by a natural person”.
Reportedly, the Commission is also considering an investigation into a complaint that “23 natural persons had lent sums over at least two different financial years and for a total amount exceeding 100,000 euros”. This comes on the heels of the judicial inquiry in July 2024 that initially targeted Marine Le Pen’s campaign accounts for the 2022 presidential election, on suspicion of “fraud committed against a public figure, forgery, use of forged documents”.
Le Monde reports that the Commission has questioned the amount and type of services paid by the far-right candidate and reimbursed by the State. Five days ago, Bardella told a press conference that his party was being targeted by supposedly “neutral” authorities determined “to financially kill the RN.”
