French far-right leader won't repay $321k in misused funds to European Parliament
France’s leading ultra-right politician and presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen has refused to return some 298,000 euros (321,300 dollars) in misused funds to the European Parliament, ignoring her repayment deadline.
The European Parliament has been trying to recover a total of 340,000 euros (366,600 dollars) from Le Pen — who is a member of the legislative body — charging that two of her parliamentary aides worked for her National Front Party back in France while they were supposed to be at the Parliament’s headquarters in Brussels.
In an initial letter to Le Pen, the Parliament demanded the repayment by January 31 of 298,497 euros for wages paid to her legislative assistant Catherine Griset from December 2010 to February 2016.
In a second letter to Le Pen, the parliament sought to recover by February 28 an additional 41,554 euros (44,200 dollars) for salary paid to her bodyguard.
The initial letter came after European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) revealed in a report last year that while Griset’s contract stipulated that her workplace be the Parliament’s headquarters in Brussels, she had been “unable to prove that she continually resided in Belgium” or that she was “regularly present at her place of work.”
OLAF also took note of the fact that Griset held a “recognized position” at Le Pen’s party headquarters in the suburbs of Paris during the time she was supposed to work as a legislative aide at the Parliament’s head office in Brussels.
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Meanwhile, Le Pen could see her salary cut in half by the Parliament if she failed to comply with its demand to pay back the misappropriated funds, according to sources cited by French media.
Le Pen has challenged the Parliament’s reimbursement demand as a “unilateral and illegal decision,” denying any wrongdoing.
Her attorney censured the repayment order last October as a “political maneuver” to “undercut Marine Le Pen’s work at the European Parliament.”
The far-right leader hopes to win France’s presidential race this spring on a platform of opposing France’s membership in the European Union.
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