Summer sums still not reimbursed, sympathizers a little too generous … In investigation judges have been investigating since July on loans granted by individuals to the National Rally (RN) party, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday.
Faced with the refusal of banks, the flame party regularly calls on individuals To borrow the money necessary for its campaigns. However, loans to political parties are the subject of strict supervision. Those emanating from individuals cannot be “carried out on a usual basis”, recalls on its site the National Assembly. In addition, “these loans, which are subject to ceilings, cannot exceed a period of five years. They cannot constitute disguised gifts ”.
A report of the National Commission for Campaign Accounts and Political Funding (CNCCFP) targeting the RN, received in 2023 by the prosecution and revealed in early May by the magazine Challengesled to the opening of the judicial information on July 2, 2024.
According to the magazine, the CNCCFP reported loans of 23 individuals, which would have been carried out in a usual way to the RN, for a total amount greater than 2.3 million euros, between 2020 and 2023. These 23 sympathizers would have lent sums to at least two different years and for a total amount of more than 100,000 euros, according to a letter from the secretary general of the CNCCF to the President of the RN, to consult. Other reports were then sent to the investigating judges, according to the public prosecutor.
Disguised donations?
According to observations from the statutory auditors of the CNCCFP, in the financial year 2023, the RN is also slow to reimburse these loans. “The reimbursement of loans taken out by the party with natural persons has been the subject of particularly attentive follow -up on the part of the Commission for several years,” said the CNCCFP in these observations.
According to Challenges, which cites a document annexed to the party accounts, 1,160 loans had not been reimbursed “on the due date” at the end of 2023 for a total of more than 12 million euros.
Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella’s party is nevertheless forced to reimburse these loans In the five years under penalty of being accused of obtaining disguised donations from his sympathizers.
The investigations opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office relate to suspicions of loan from a legal person to a candidate in the electoral campaign, acceptance by a candidate in the campaign of this loan, embezzlement of property by people exercising a public service or even fraud on the damage of a public person. Judicial information is also open for false and use of false.
