French state prosecutors have asked appeals court judges to maintain a five-year electoral ban on far-right leader Marine Le Pen for embezzling European parliament funds in a fake job scandal.
If the judges decide to grant the request, Le Pen will likely not be able to run in the 2027 French presidential election.
State prosecutors also recommended a four-year prison sentence against Le Pen, three of which will be suspended, and one served at home with an electronic bracelet. They are also asking for a €100,000 fine.
“The seriousness of the charges means that any other punishment is not enough,” Stéphane Madoz-Blanchet, one of the state prosecutors in the case said on Tuesday.
The final sentencing decision will be made by a panel of appeals judges who will take several months to deliberate and return a verdict “before the summer”.
Le Pen, 57, who leads the anti-immigration National Rally (RN), was considered one of the leading contenders for next year’s French presidential election until she was banned from running for election for five years with immediate effect in March after being found guilty of a wide-ranging and long-running fake job scam in the European parliament.
Le Pen appealed against the verdict last year and a new trial at the Paris appeals court is entering its final stages. Le Pen seeks to overturn last year’s verdict and sentence in order to run for president in 2027. She told the court that her party had no “system” in place to use European parliament funds.
But the state prosecutors who summarized the case against Le Pen on Tuesday that he was at the center of a “conceived”, “centralized” and almost “industrial” system to waste the funds of the European parliament.
They told the appeals court that taxpayer money allocated to members of the European parliament to pay their assistants based in Strasbourg or Brussels was siphoned off by the party from 2004 to 2016, to pay its own workers in France, in violation of parliamentary rules.
The French staff had no connection to the work done by the European parliament, prosecutors said. The loss of European funds is estimated at €4.8m (£4.2m). The party, formerly known as the National Front, made huge savings through the system, prosecutors said. The system is well documented in email exchanges and party papers.
A state prosecutor, Thierry Ramonatxo, criticized Le Pen for making public attacks on judges after last year’s verdict, when he said a “tyranny of judges” wanted to stop her running in a presidential race she could win.
According to Ramonatxo, the judges simply applied the law voted by the people’s representatives in the parliament. He said that Le Pen “chose to attack the judges on the political stage rather than to reflect on what she has disgraced”.
He said: “Speaking of a ‘tyranny of judges’, of a ‘violation of the rule of law’ or of ‘political murder’ is not part of the judicial debate in a democratic society.
Ramonatxo said it was dangerous and judges were exposed to death threats because of these attacks.
He added: “Talking about a conspiracy among the judges is not an argument, it is a reflex to retreat whenever the cause seems lost.”
He noted Le Pen’s “change of tone” at the appeals court with a calmer mood, compared to her anti-judges press conference and media interviews last year.
State prosecutors did not request that a five-year ban on running for public office take immediate effect. However, this detail – which will leave room for a final appeal to France’s highest court – is unlikely to change the fact that a five-year ban will effectively prevent Le Pen from standing for the presidency next spring.
Le Pen, in the front row of the court, sat taking notes and shaking her head as state prosecutors outlined their case against her and 10 other party members who appealed against last year’s verdict – another 13 convicted last year did not appeal.
Outside the court, before state prosecutors summed up, Le Pen told journalists: “I am a believer, so I believe in miracles.”
Defense attorneys will give closing arguments next week. If Le Pen is barred from running for office, she will be replaced by her protégé and party president, Jordan Bardella, 30.
Le Pen has recently begun to speak of Bardella as a clear alternative if he no longer runs for president, telling La Tribune Dimanche last month: “Jordan Bardella can win in my place.” He said that whatever the result, his party will dominate and its “ideas will live on”.