French investigative magistrates have asked the European Parliament in Strasbourg to lift the parliamentary immunity of Marine Le Pen, the leader of the extreme right-wing National Front (FN) and a leading presidential candidate, so that she can be questioned and possibly charged in connection with a fake jobs scandal.
Ms Le Pen invoked her immunity as an MEP when she refused to respond to a judge's summons in late February and again in early March. Judges want to inform her that she is mise en examen, or formally placed under investigation, but can do so only in her presence. Ms Le Pen's lawyer said on Friday she would present herself for questioning after France's legislative elections in June, " depending on the results of the presidential election".
Voters go to the polls in the first round of the presidential election on April 23rd. Opinion polls indicate Ms Le Pen will be one of two candidates to go through to a second round vote on May 7th.
Conservative rival
If her immunity was lifted and she continued to refuse to respond to summons, Ms Le Pen could be arrested and presented to judges by force.
The “judiciary truce” cited by Ms Le Pen, and by her conservative rival François Fillon, who is under investigation for corruption, has no basis in law. Contrary to Ms Le Pen, Mr Fillon obeyed the magistrates’ request and was formally placed under investigation on fraud-related charges on March 14th.
Ms Le Pen reacted to the latest development in a nonchalant manner. "This is normal. It's the classic procedure. I am not surprised," she told France Info radio.
The investigation seeks to establish whether the FN conspired to pay party workers with EU funds intended to finance the hiring of parliamentary assistants.
The EU’s anti-fraud agency Olaf asked Ms Le Pen and five other FN deputies to repay salaries of people it considered to be bogus assistants. Since Ms Le Pen refused to reimburse €298,400 in February, her monthly MEP’s salary has been docked.
The judges from the “financial pole” of the Paris prosecutor’s office sent their request to the EU parliament at the end of March, but the development became known only on Friday when the Agence France Presse news agency broke the story.
Ms Le Pen was for months expected to win the April 23rd vote. She and the centrist Emmanuel Macron are tied for first place, at 22 per cent of the vote, in an Ipsos-Sopra Steria poll published on Friday.
Lost ground
Both candidates have lost ground, however. Ms Le Pen was dumbfounded when the Trotskyist candidate Philippe Poutou attacked her over the fake jobs scandal in a televised debate on March 20th. Her statement that France was not responsible for the deportation of Jews during the second World War has also hurt her.
The far left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon is on 20 per cent support, and Mr Fillon at 19 per cent. The margin of error means that any two of the four leading candidates could face each other in the run-off.
The European Parliament considered 15 requests for revocation of immunity last year. Its legal affairs commission, which examines such cases, often demands further details from the national authority making the request, and usually questions the MEP. The commission then reports to a plenary session of the parliament, where each deputy votes individually. The process takes between four and eight months, so Ms Le Pen is unlikely to lose her immunity before the second round of the election on May 7th.
Ms Le Pen and her father Jean-Marie are also suspected of understating the value of their assets on income tax returns, and the FN is the object of two French investigations regarding the financing of campaigns from 2011 until 2015. At least eight FN officials have been mis en examen in the scandals.
