The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) is investigating possible fraud by the French far-right party Rassemblement National (RN). The French news agency AFP reported this on Thursday to French media confirmed by the party itself.
Party leader Jordan Bardella (30) is said to have used European money to organize media training for himself and his fellow party members in the run-up to the 2022 French presidential elections. EPPO does not wish to comment on ongoing investigations to AFP.
The investigation got underway after a complaint of a French action group against corruption, which again based itself on an article that last November in the weekly magazine Le Canard enchainé was published.
Between 2019 and 2021, a media trainer is said to have received 133,300 euros – officially to help RN party members “improve their communication on European affairs”, but according to research by the weekly magazine actually to prepare them for the election battle in their own country.
Rassemblement National “disputes” the accusations against Jordan Bardella, writes the newspaper Le Monde Thursday. A media trainer had been hired, but he worked “in accordance with the rules of the European Parliament”. According to the party, the trainer had meetings with several RN MEPs between 2019 and 2024, including Bardella. “But they were interrupted precisely because of the start of the 2022 presidential elections.”
Convicted of fraud
Bardella has been in the European Parliament on behalf of Rassemblement National since 2019. In 2022, he took over the party chairmanship from Marine Le Pen, who became chairman of the RN faction in the French parliament that year. During the 2022 elections, Bardella campaigned for Le Pen’s presidency.
In the spring of 2025, Le Pen (57) himself was convicted of fraud with European money. The judge found it proven that her party, which at the time was still called Front National (FN), embezzled 4.4 million euros in European money between 2004 and 2016. The money was intended for salaries of assistants to MEPs, but was used to pay other party workers – the personal bodyguard of Marine’s father Jean-Marie Le Pen, for example.
Le Pen was sentenced to four years in prison, two of which were conditional and two with an ankle bracelet, a fine of 100,000 euros and a five-year ban from participating in elections – which means that she is not allowed to stand for election in the 2027 presidential elections. Le Pen appealed. That was the case last January and February, and the judge will make a ruling this summer.
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