PARIS, April 17 (Reuters) – A report by the European Union Anti-Fraud Office (Olaf) accuses Marine Le Pen, a far-right candidate in the French presidential election, of embezzling nearly 140,000 euros of public money from the European Parliament between 2004 and 2017 when she was an MEP, reports Mediapart.
According to the investigation site, the report was transmitted on March 11 to French justice and is currently “under analysis” by the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Several relatives of Marine Le Pen, qualified for the second round of the presidential election to be held next Sunday, denounced an “instrumentalization”.
“It is an office against which we have filed a complaint twice, which will obviously give rise to a third complaint”, declared Jordan Bardella, president of the RN, Sunday on Europe 1. “The French will not be fooled by attempts of the European Union and European institutions (..) to interfere in the presidential campaign and harm Marine Le Pen.”
According to Médiapart, the report also pinpoints other personalities from the National Rally, bringing the total amount claimed by the anti-fraud office to more than 617,000 euros. (Gilles Guillaume, edited by)