French prosecutor studying EU anti-fraud agency report on Le Pen
PARIS (Reuters) – French prosecutors mentioned on Sunday they’re inspecting a report by the European Union’s anti-fraud company accusing far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and members of her occasion of misappropriating hundreds of euros’ price of EU funds.
Le Pen is difficult Emmanuel Macron in a presidential election with opinion polls displaying Macron edging forward in subsequent Sunday’s second spherical runoff.
The Paris prosecutor’s workplace confirmed that it was learning a report it obtained from the EU anti-fraud company OLAF on March 11.
Investigative web site Mediapart wrote on Saturday that the OLAF report claimed Le Pen had misappropriated 140,000 euros of public cash with occasion members in whole diverting 617,000 euros. None are accused of profiting immediately, however of claiming EU funds for workers and occasion bills.
Le Pen’s workplace couldn’t instantly be reached for remark.
“The French won’t be fooled by makes an attempt of the European Union and the European establishments (…) to intervene within the presidential marketing campaign and hurt Marine Le Pen,” Nationwide Rally president Jordan Bardella instructed Europe 1 radio.
He mentioned his occasion had filed two authorized complaints towards OLAF, and that it will be submitting a 3rd in response to the report.
Chatting with BFM TV, Le Pen’s lawyer Rodolphe Bosselut mentioned his shopper denied the fees. He mentioned she had but to be questioned and neither he nor Le Pen had seen the OLAF report.
Le Pen has been underneath investigation since 2017 as a part of a probe into the alleged misuse of European Union funds to pay parliamentary assistants.
($1 = 0.9254 euros)
(Reporting by Gilles Guillaume; writing by John Irish; Modifying by Raissa Kasolowsky)
