The searches were carried out this Wednesday, July 9, in particular at the headquarters of the national demonstration, as part of an opened judicial information a year ago on suspicions of irregularity about the electoral financing of the distant party.
• Several searches made in the morning
From 8:50 am, the national rally headquarters was sought by the financial brigade, announced the president of the Jordan Bardella party. According to him, around twenty police “armed and in bulletproof vests” are present, accompanied by “two investigating judges.”
All the electoral activity of the party has been seized by justice, “all emails, documents and accounting elements.”
At the same time, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced to BFMTV that “the company’s headquarters”, as well as the “houses of the main natural persons of these companies” were also registered.
According to BFMTV’s information, the lawyer Me Walland de Saint-Just was present during this morning’s searches.
• suspicions of irregularities about electoral financing
Jordan Bardella wrote in X does not “know” what the complaints “that they found this search. The Paris prosecutor’s office told BFMTV that this operation was carried out as part of an open judicial information on July 3, 2024.
The latter opened against an unidentified person after several reports “emanating from an institutional source,” related “in particular to” the financing of 2022 presidential campaignsLegislative of 2022 and European of 2024 “.
The investigations must “make it possible to determine whether these campaigns have been financed in particular thanks to the illegal loans of individuals that benefit the party or the candidates of the national demonstration, as well as by means of the position of overload of services or the billing of fictitious benefits that have been integrated thereafter in the global reimbursement requests for the status of the campaign expenses”, they detail the Parqueta of Paris.
Judicial information is related to many suspicious facts, in particular “fraud committed to the damage of a public person”, “loan for a usual basis of a natural person to a political party”, “acceptance by an electoral campaign candidate of an illegal loan of an illegal person” or even “aggravated money laundering” and “false and use of false”.
• “usual” loans?
Clearly, justice tries to determine if the national demonstration has chosen the rules for electoral financing by having an excessive appeal to people’s loans during these campaigns. Individual loans are in fact authorized but should not be “usual.”
For the Campaign Accounts Commission (CNCCFP), of five loans for a total amount greater than 75,000 euros, the latter are considered “usual” and, therefore, this requires informing justice. However, in the Electoral Code, nothing is clearly arranged.
Last week at a conference, the CNCCFP explained that Jordan Bardella had been the most used loan of individuals during the European campaign of 2022.
The Paris Prosecutor’s Office specifies to date, no natural or legal person has been charged.
• Independent facts of the research in the European Parliament
These searches intervene the day after the opening of an investigation carried out by the European Prosecutor’s Office for suspicions of financial irregularities aimed at the former RN political family within the European Parliament. Other European parties are attacked.
However, although they take place simultaneously, nothing links the two surveys directly, which are independent of each other and relate to different facts.
The survey in the European Parliament aims to determine whether more than 4.3 million euros were “excessive” between 2019 and 2024 for the RN and its partners of ancient identity and democracy (ID). Facts highlighted by a report by the Directorate of Financial Affairs of the Institution Brussels, revealed by several media in early July.
• A “harassment operation” reacts the RN
Several members of the National Rally denounced the searches of which the distant part is subject. “This spectacular and unprecedented operation is clearly part of a new harassment operation. It is serious damage to pluralism and democratic alternation, immediately denounced Jordan Bardella in X.
“He has never undergone such an implacable opposition party under the fifth republic,” he concluded.
Jean-Philippe Tanguy also reacted on the same social network. “A year after having stolen the elections for their mischief and lies, the system sinks into the low works. The institutions are wrong by bands that wish to maintain power at all costs.”
The managers of the national demonstration also denounced the presence of police officers with bulletproof vests. “If this news came from any other country, all the authorities would already cry in the scandal,” said the spokesman for the national demonstration, Thomas spared in X.
However, this is not the first time that the financial brigade has been equipped as follows: in 2018, during the search for the headquarters of the Movement of Rebel France, the police were also armed and protected with bulletproof vests.
As for the elected officials of other French political parties, several are directed directly to the RN after these searches. “You are not above the laws,” said the deputy of Seine-Saint-Ddenis Aly Diauara. Prisca Thevenot, meanwhile, called Jordan Bardella “Scam.”
Source: BFM TV
