French prosecutors said Sunday they were considering a report by the European Union’s anti-fraud service accusing far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and members of her party of embezzling EU funds, according to Reuters.
The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed that it was studying a report it received from the EU anti-fraud agency OLAF on 11 March.
The research site Mediapart wrote on Saturday that the OLAF report claimed that Lepen had embezzled 140,000 euros in public money, with party members extorting a total of 617,000 euros. No one is accused of benefiting directly, but of claiming EU funds for staff and event expenses.
“The French will not be fooled by the efforts of the European Union and the European institutions (…) to intervene in the election campaign and harm Marin Le Pen,” National Alarm President Jordan Bardella told Europe 1 radio.
He said his party had filed two lawsuits against OLAF and would file a third in response to the report.
Speaking to BFM TV, Le Pen’s lawyer Rodolphe Bosselut said his client denied the allegations. He said he had not yet been questioned and that neither he nor Lepen had seen the OLAF report.
Le Pen has been under investigation since 2017 as part of an investigation into the alleged misuse of European Union funds to pay for parliamentary aid.
Source: Capital
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