Another case that targets the national rally in the European Parliament. Barely out of the first trial of European parliamentary assistants, the party is again suspected of various financial irregularities with its extreme right allies in Brussels, according to a report revealed Thursday by several media including the world.
Failure of tenders, overcharges and donations to associations: the RN is still accused of having violated the rules of the European Parliament.
A fraud of 4.3 million euros suspected
With his partners from the former identity and democracy (ID), Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella’s party is indeed suspected of having “unduly spent” more than 4.3 million euros between 2019 and 2024, according to a report by the financial affairs of the Brussels institution.
If the French training did not exercise, during this period, neither the presidency nor the general secretariat of this coalition (at the time dominated by the Northern Italian League), most of this sum benefited two companies linked to relatives of Marine Le Pen: his former adviser Frédéric Chatillon and his wife Sighild Blanc.
According to this document, unveiled by The world as well as by the German television show In contrastthe Magazine He sees and the Austrian weekly Falter, The E-Politic Communication Agency thus received 1.7 million euros after a “purely formal” call for tenders and tainted with “serious compliance problems” according to Brussels inspectors, who therefore believe that “all these expenses […] are irregular ”.
Same thing for the unanimous company, which pocketed more than 1.4 million euros for printing work, in addition subcontracts at a lower cost, with a margin valued at 260,000 euros.
Sympathies and subsidies
Methods reminiscent of the so-called “campaign kits” affair, in which Frédéric Chatillon, Sighild Blanc and members of the ex-National Front had been sentenced for fraud and abuse of corporate property, for acts dating back to the 2012 legislative elections.
Installed since in Rome and officially more in “commercial relationship” with the flame party, Frédéric Chatillon therefore did not cut all the bridges with the formation of Marine Le Pen, her friend from the benches of the university. The former boss of the GUD (Union Defense group), an extreme right union dissolved in 2024, was however publicly disowned by the triple presidential candidate, because of his support displayed to a demonstration of an ultra -right group in Paris.
Sympathies which also appear in another component of the European Parliament report, devoted to the multiple gifts of the RN and its allies to associations that have “no link” with their political activities in Brussels. Between animal shelters and friendly firefighters, these subsidies also benefited an identity Catholic organization for the restoration of a parish or anti-abortion activities in Germany.
In total, more than 700,000 euros have been distributed in five years to structures often linked to relatives of extreme right -wing MEPs, or located in their election region.
Parliament “seeks noise”, according to the pen
Contacted by AFP, the European Parliament indicated that it was “at the moment premature to give any comment” on this report, which must still pass in front of several instances before being approved.
The former secretary general of the Identity and Democracy group, the Belgian Philip Claeys, did not deprive himself to denounce “incorrect allegations” to the world, ensuring that “all the payments made in the last five years have been duly billed, justified and controlled”.
Marine Le Pen, she said Thursday morning on RTL not being aware of the subject: “I do not know what it is, I did not look at this file”. But “there can be administrative disagreements with the European Parliament” and “we will try, once again, to resolve them”, she added, before qualifying the institution “as a political body (which) leads to his opposition a war of trenches” and “seek noise morning, noon and evening, in all circumstances”.
