On 9 July, police and judicial officials raided France’s far-right National Rally (RN) headquarters as part of an investigation into alleged campaign finance violations.
RN party president Jordan Bardella described the raid as “a new harassment campaign”.
According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, the investigation aims to ascertain whether RN campaigns were partly financed via illegal loans between 2020 and 2024.
The probe is looking into allegations of possible money laundering and the use of forged documents during the RN party’s 2022 French presidential campaign, national legislative elections the same year and the European Parliament elections of 2024.
The probe continues, and no charges have been filed, prosecutors say.
Posting on X, Bardella said emails, documents and accounting data had been seized when armed officers and court officials raided the party’s Paris office on Wednesday morning.
“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 wrote, indicating he was unaware of “the basis of this action”.
Bardella said the unprecedented raid was “clearly part of a new harassment campaign”. He called it “a serious attack on pluralism and democratic transition”, noting that no opposition party had ever “suffered such persecution under the Fifth Republic.”
Speaking to reporters outside the party’s headquarters, former party treasurer Wallerand de Saint-Just said: “We did nothing wrong”.
In recent years, the RN has become the biggest parliamentary party in France. However, after President Emmanuel Macron called a snap election last year, a coalition of mainstream political forces was formed that kept it out of government.”
Wednesday’s raid occurred some three months after RN co-founder and de facto leader Marine Le Pen and other RN members were convicted of embezzling European Union funds. That ruling banned three-time presidential candidate Le Pen from office for five years, which could stop her from running in France’s 2027 election.
Her appeal against the verdict is expected to be ruled on by the Paris Court of Appeal by next summer. This week, Le Pen asked the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to intervene and call on France to remove the ban on her running for office.
In another investigative probe, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office said on Tuesday that it is looking into allegations about the misuse of 4.3 million euros in EU funds by Identity and Democracy, a since-defunct far-right European parliamentary group that once included the RN.
