The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has denied embezzling EU funds in a fake jobs scam when questioned in court for the first time, and used her appearance in the dock to attack the European parliament as a slow-moving, alien “blob”.
Le Pen is one of 27 members and employees of the party then known as the National Front (FN) who are on trial in Paris for allegedly using EU money to finance domestic political activities between 2006 and 2016.
The European parliament says the money should have been used on EU staff salaries and has estimated the allegedly embezzled funds at about €7m.
Asked about the alleged fraud on Monday, Le Pen, 56, replied: “Everything we did, we had the right to do.” She added: “I have absolutely no sense of having committed the slightest irregularity, or the slightest illegal act.”
She denies the charges. If convicted, she could face a prison sentence, a €1m (£835,000) fine and being disbarred from political office for five years, which would rule out a presidential bid in 2027.
Le Pen, who was an MEP between 2004 and 2017 and is now the parliamentary leader of the National Rally (RN), formerly the FN, used her testimony to attack the European parliament.
“The European parliament is a bit like watching out for the Blob,” she told the court, referring to the 1958 film about an amoeboid alien that devours and dissolves everything in its path.
“Everything in the European parliament is designed to ensure that MEPs live in a vacuum. Sometimes you have to say to them ‘wake up, we’re in politics, you have to go outside and carry what we’re doing inside’,” Le Pen told the court.
“There’s nothing worse than a member of parliament who doesn’t see a single voter from the moment he’s elected,” she added.
Le Pen is on trial alongside her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the FN; her sister, Yann Le Pen; Louis Aliot, the RN vice-president and mayor of Perpignan; and two RN MPs, Julien Odoul and Timothée Houssin.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, 96, will not be present at the trial due to ill health.
The allegations about fake jobs emerged in January 2014 when the European Anti-fraud Office (Olaf) received an anonymous tipoff about possible fraud and “fictitious employment”.
Olaf first investigated Thierry Légier, Marine Le Pen’s bodyguard, and Catherine Griset, her friend and chief of staff, who had been given contracts as European parliamentary assistants. Olaf’s investigation revealed that Griset, now an MEP, spent only about 12 hours at the European parliament when she was supposed to be Le Pen’s assistant there between October 2014 and August 2015. It also described Légier’s employment as a parliamentary assistant as “fictitious”.
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In March 2015, further investigations were ordered after the then president of the European parliament, Martin Schulz, referred possible irregularities to Olaf concerning salaries paid to other assistants. Schulz reported the matter to the French justice ministry after noting that 20 parliamentary assistants were also part of the FN organisation chart, some even occupying key positions alongside Le Pen and her father.
On Monday, Le Pen told the court she had created a pool of parliamentary assistants who worked when and how they were required. She insisted there was no rule specifying the tasks that fell to particular assistants.
When questioned about how exactly she had selected her presumed parliamentary aides, and what their tasks were, she gave general answers or said she could not remember. “It was 20 years ago,” she said.
Le Pen had previously described the accusations as “deeply unfair”. “We will go to court and say that we have committed no offence … I am very sure of our innocence,” she said in September.
Speaking before her testimony on Monday, the RN spokesperson Sébastien Chenu told the media that he did not believe Le Pen would be banned from standing for office if convicted. “If there is this sentence we will obviously appeal because it will be unjust,” he told TF1.
The trial is expected to continue until 27 November.