The defense lawyers arrived on Monday armed with their “conclusions” and their requests for referral, inviting the prosecution to seize the investigating judges again so that they finally give a “precise, invariable, intangible interpretation” of this who must be judged. In question, three tables that President Bénédicte de Perthuis had presented at the hearing so that everyone “sees clearly” in this complex file, where we are talking about around twenty contracts and as many defendants, of embezzlement of public funds, complicity or concealment, during a period spanning more than 10 years (2004-2016).
Bond of estimated damage. The defense thus discovered that the court had seen much broader than they thought, retaining all the contracts of the period – not to blame the defendants, but the National Rally, as a legal person and in the name of the “system » management of parliamentary envelopes which would have been put in place in the party. With the consequence of a jump in the estimated damage – 4.5 million euros, while the European Parliament, civil party to the trial, spoke more of three million.
For the prosecution and the European Parliament, it’s “the Euromillion!” », Launches the lawyer of the National Rally (formerly National Front), Me David Dassa Le Deist. “The Euromillion was more for the FN, from 2004 to 2016,” replies the lawyer of the European Parliament, Me Patrick Maisonneuve, insisting that his estimates were only a “project” – that it will not be missed not “improve, and clearly”, he adds with a greedy smile.
“Judicial schizophrenia”. It’s “judicial schizophrenia”, denounces Marine Le Pen’s lawyer, Me Rodolphe Bosselut, estimating that the leader of the far right will now have to explain the parliamentary assistant contracts for which she had been cleared after a 10-year investigation. He warns that he will tell his client not to answer questions about these contracts.
“The prosecutions are neither imprecise nor unpredictable,” replies prosecutor Louise Neyton with a weary air, speaking of “classic jurisprudence” to all cases similar to multiple prosecutions. But “he who doesn’t try anything gets nothing, with a misunderstanding it can work.” After a brief recess, the court joins the merits, that is to say it will rule at the end of the trial. The hearing continues with the first interrogations of Marine Le Pen’s co-defendants.
