Marine Le Pen Accused of Embezzlement

Facts

• A European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) report has accused Marine Le Pen and several of her party members of embezzling about €620k while serving as members of the European Parliament.¹
• The public prosecution in Paris reportedly received the report on Mar. 11 and is examining it. However, the investigative news site Mediapart published parts of it on Sat.²
• Le Pen is accused of personally diverting some €137k of EU funds taken illegally into party coffers. This allegedly occurred during her time as an MEP, between 2004 and 2017.³
• Rodolphe Bosselut, Le Pen's lawyer, said that OLAF's investigation has been open since 2016, but that Le Pen had yet to be questioned and neither he nor his client had seen the report.⁴
• Le Pen has also been under investigation for 'breach of trust' and 'misuse of public funds,' in relation to the alleged illegal use of EU cash to pay National Rally (formally the National Front) staff.²
• The report comes a week before the second round of the French presidential election, this Sun., in which Le Pen will face off against Emmanuel Macron.¹

Sources: ¹Guardian, ²Daily Mail, ³Raw Story and ⁴Al Jazeera.

Narratives

• Left narrative, as provided by Le Monde.fr. Le Pen has already been accused of embezzlement, and it's quite clear that she views EU institutions with utter contempt - especially considering her Eurosceptic political platform. It was doubtful that she would win before this scandal, and this is good news for Macron.
• Right narrative, as provided by DW. This report is clearly a political stunt by the EU to swing France's election toward the Europe-friendly Macron. Recent polls gave Le Pen a strong chance of beating the current French President, so the EU had to intervene to save him.