at the helm, she tries to teach a political lesson

JUSTICE – “So, is it the big oral today? » In the dock before the start of the hearing, Marine Le Pen furtively looks up from her notes. This Monday, October 14, she arrived twenty minutes early in room 2.01 of the Paris court, where the journalists were already crowding together. After champing at the bit during previous hearings, here is the leader of the RN finally on the stand to begin the third week of this extraordinary trial.

In his hands, a string of colorful files. Post-its stick out from loose sheets of paper, attesting to the long hours of work that preceded this unique day ahead of her. A sign of nervousness, or eagerness to do battle, the hearing has not yet opened when Marine Le Pen begins to arrange her papers on the desk… before finally putting everything away.

The former MEP is on trial alongside 24 other defendants for suspicion of misappropriation of public funds to the detriment of the European Parliament between 2004 and 2016. The one who was then, since 2011, president of the National Front (currently National Rally) is accused of knowingly used European Parliament money to pay parliamentary assistants who in fact worked for the party in Paris.

Marine Le Pen advances in front of her desk, to face the president of the 11th correctional chamber, Bénédicte de Perthuis, of whom she castigated “ bias » in an interview with the newspaper The Point a few days earlier. Today, she came to defend herself: “ I have absolutely no feeling that I have committed the slightest irregularity, the slightest illegality. “, she declares.

“He can work for the benefit of his party”

And all afternoon his line does not move one iota: the mandate of MEP – and that of parliamentary assistant – is inseparable from politics, and therefore from one’s party. “ An assistant works for his deputy and he can work for him, for the benefit of his party and the enlargement of his elected representatives “, she assures, while agreeing that “ others have a different opinion. » « We are radically opposed to the way the European Parliament works », she adds.

The three-time far-right presidential candidate explains that she makes a point of ensuring that MEPs do not only work in Parliament… which she compares to a “ blob ». « Parliament functions in such a way that it swallows up the deputies, you can sleep there, eat there, have your hair done… Everything is done so that the MEP lives in isolation (…) We must go to the outside, wear what we do, go see our voters! “, she assures, raising her voice.

« Yes, but he has a mandate », recalls Patrick Maisonneuve, lawyer for the European Parliament. “ Yes, but he also owes this mandate to a movement, to volunteersannoys Marine Le Pen. He owes it to everyone there. The mandate, you want to see it right on the axis of legislative work. No, it’s not just that. »

What does a parliamentary assistant do?

While two visions of the mission of the MEP and his parliamentary assistant clash in a dialogue of the deaf, the president struggles to obtain further details. The memory of Marine Le Pen is sometimes confusing. “ You don’t remember your parliamentary assistants? » she asks him, when she approaches her first years as an MEP. “ Why do you say that? » stammers the member for Pas de Calais before finally throwing out a few names.

This Monday, Marine Le Pen had to answer for facts concerning the hiring of Catherine Griset, parliamentary assistant to the latter between 2010 and 2016, who is also during the same period assistant then chief of staff to the president of the RN in Paris. But when the court finally examines the facts, Marine Le Pen prefers to discuss the internal investigation of the European Parliament… A diversion reframed by the president. “ Let’s stay on Madame Griset », she tells him.

One thing is certain, it will take more than lessons in political philosophy for Marine Le Pen to convince the court of her good faith, and that of the National Rally. The leader of the far-right party risks big with a trial which could well compromise her political ambitions. Marine Le Pen notably faces a penalty of ineligibility of five to ten years.