Politics in Europe > The games the French government plays to keep the National Rally on the ropes; Raid on RN a fishing trip for Macron

 

ECHR rejects Le Pen’s bid to suspend

election ban

The right-wing French politician has been barred

from the 2027 presidential race

French politician Marine Le Pen at a campaign event in Paris on April 6, 2025. ©  Adnan Farzat / NurPhoto / Getty Images

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has rejected veteran right-wing French politician Marine Le Pen’s request to suspend a five-year ban on her standing in elections, including the 2027 presidential race, which stems from an embezzlement conviction.

“In any event, the existence of an imminent risk of irreparable harm to a right protected by the Convention or its protocols has not been established,” the court wrote in its press release on Wednesday.

In March 2025, a French judge found the former leader of the biggest opposition party, National Rally (RN), guilty of misusing public funds intended for assistants to the RN members of the European Parliament; they were instead used to pay staff in France. Le Pen has denied any wrongdoing and appealed the verdict, which she calls politically motivated.

Read more

 French investigators raid HQ of biggest opposition party

Le Pen ran for president in 2017 and 2022, losing both times in a runoff to President Emmanuel Macron. The National Rally is currently the third-largest party in the National Assembly.

On Wednesday, police raided RN headquarters in Paris as part of an investigation into alleged campaign finance violations and fraud. RN leader Jordan Bardella denounced the searches as an attempt to “destabilize the party and drive it into financial ruin.”

US President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance have publicly voiced support for Le Pen, which the French authorities dismissed as meddling in domestic affairs.

================================================================================================

French authorities raid National Rally HQ over alleged finance crimes

By Ian Stark

   

Jordan Bardella, president of the French National Rally Party, said its offices had been raided by French authorities. File Photo by Maya Vidon-White/UPI | License Photo

July 9 (UPI) -- French law enforcement conducted a raid Wednesday on the headquarters of the National Rally Party as part of an ongoing investigation into possible financial crimes.

National Rally President Jordan Bardella said on X Wednesday that "about 20 financial brigade police officers, armed and wearing bulletproof vests, accompanied by two investigating judges," arrived at RN HQ at around 2:50 a.m. EDT and ostensibly seized "all emails, documents, and accounting records of the leading opposition party."

2:50 a.m. EDT is 8:50 a.m. European Summer Time

He further claimed his group wasn't informed about what led to the seizure.

"This operation, spectacular and unprecedented, is clearly part of a new harassment campaign," Bardella said. "It is a serious attack on pluralism and democratic alternation."

The Parisian prosecutor's office has explained the investigation is intended to determine if the National Rally in any way financed its campaigns through illegal loans between 2020 and 2024.

So, it's basically a fishing trip by the government. More political games to destroy the opposition.

No one has been charged in connection to the Wednesday raid but does come about three months after former RN leader Marine Le Pen was found guilty of misusing European Parliament monies and sent to prison.

"Suspecting our activists," said Bardella in a follow-up X post Wednesday, "who lend to the RN due to the lack of banks willing to do so, of 'illegally practicing the profession of banker' is a farce."

He went on to allege that the RN headquarters raid was a political stunt.

"Nothing to do with justice, everything to do with politics," he concluded.

That's how it's been from the beginning, Jordan. The corrupt use of the justice system against democracy.

================================================================================================

Corruption is Everywhere > In French Politics for sure; Canada's RBC and CIBC Banks fined for disgraceful behaviour

 

Ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy was convicted of illegal campaign financing in a failed 2012 re-election bid. He recently appealed the conviction. He was charged last month in a separate witness tampering case relating to alleged Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential win. Sarkozy also faces a separate probe into possible potential influence-peddling.

Marine Le Pen has been charged for this apparent fraud a couple of times before, but usually within a year of the next election. The French Government and the EU leadership do not want a far-right President in France and who knows to what lengths they will go to keep her out? 

On the other hand, if she and her party-mates are actually guilty, it could be the end of The National Rally, which, in turn, would mean the end of France as a French entity and it's emergence as a Muslim colony.

French prosecutors order Le Pen to stand trial

in EU funding scandal

French prosecutors on Friday ordered far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen to stand trial over claims she used EU funds to finance party activities in France.

Issued on: 08/12/2023 - 18:16Modified: 08/12/2023 - 18:18

1 min 

By:NEWS WIRES

Marine Le Pen attends a debate on France's sovereignty, nationality, immigration and asylum called by right-wing party 'Les Republicains' at the National Assembly in Paris, December 7, 2023. © Ludovic Marin, AFP

The former presidential candidate will in March be joined by 26 other members of the National Rally (RN) party in the dock, all accused of setting up a system for embezzling EU money to hire staff in France.

The fake jobs inquiry began in 2015, with prosecutors alleging that starting in 2004, National Front eurodeputies including Le Pen took part in the fake jobs scheme.

The accused include Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the co-founder of what became France’s most successful far-right party.

The party itself, as a legal entity, is suspected of receiving illicit funds, and of complicity in fraud.

Marine Le Pen was runner-up to Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections and could have another go in 2027. She was president of her party until 2021, and now leads its parliamentary group.

The charges against her are embezzlement and collusion in fraud.

The decision to go to trial was taken by two investigating magistrates from France’s financial crimes prosecuting unit.

The group is accused of using EU parliamentary funds to pay for assistants who in fact worked for the National Rally party, formerly called the National Front.

Le Pen, who stepped down as an MEP in 2017 after her election to the French parliament, has denied the claims.

The charges carry sentences of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to double the alleged funds embezzled.

If convicted, the court could also declare Le Pen ineligible for office for up to 10 years – threatening her plan to make a fourth run for the French presidency.

The EU Parliament estimated in 2018 that 6.8 million euros ($7.3 million at today’s rates) had been embezzled from 2009 to 2017.

(AFP)

CIBC hit with $1.3M penalty after failing to report

suspicious transactions

By Staff  The Canadian Press

Posted December 7, 2023 10:27 am

View image in full screen

The CIBC logo is displayed on a flag in front of its headquarters in Toronto on Monday, Oct. 25, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Evan Buhler

Canada’s financial intelligence agency says it has levied a $1.3-million penalty against CIBC for non-compliance with money laundering and terrorist financing measures.

The penalty is the second the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada has announced this week after RBC’s $7.4-million fine was publicized on Tuesday.

The agency, known as Fintrac, says it imposed the penalty over CIBC’s failure to submit a suspicious transaction report when there were grounds to suspect it was related to money laundering or terrorist activity, and failures to report information related to large money transfers from outside Canada.

0:21

CIBC Q3 profits down 10% compared to 2022

Fintrac tries to pinpoint money linked to illicit activities by electronically sifting through millions of pieces of information each year from banks, insurance companies, money services businesses and others.

It says it found an instance where CIBC didn’t file a suspicious transaction report even as it knew the client had been arrested and charged with criminal offences, while the agency’s review also found over a thousand instances, out of a sample of 20,000, where information related to money transfers was incomplete.

CIBC spokesman Tom Wallis says the administrative matters are related to a relatively small number of transactions and that the bank will continue to identify, investigate and do its part to deter and detect financial crimes.

So, how many CIBC employees were involved in these transactions? And what has become of them? Same question for RBC.

==========================================================

Right-Wing Parties Gain Highest Voter Approval Ahead of EU Elections – Study

The election of a Republican Government in the US was tempered by the mid-term rise in the numbers of Democratic law-makers. But elsewhere, countries are turning more and more to the right.

In Canada, when the very Liberal Party and Justin Trudeau took power in 2015, there were 8 left-leaning provincial governments in our 10 provinces, and only 2 right-leaning governments. Since then, the country has flipped with only 4 left-leaning provincial legislatures and 6 right-leaning houses. 

This is not because the right-wing message is so appealing to Canadians, but because the far-left message of the very Liberal Trudeau and the far-left governments of Kathleen Wynne in Ontario and Rachel Notley in Alberta were simple rejected as 'not who we are as Canadians'. 

(L-R) Matteo Salvini, from Italy's Lega Nord, Austrian Freedom Party member Harald Vilimsky, Marine Le Pen,

France's National Front political party head, Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) leader Geert Wilders and

Belgium's Flemish Vlaams Belang party member Gerolf Annemans © Reuters / Francois Lenoir

One in 10 Europeans will back right-wing parties in the upcoming European Union elections, according to a new study, pointing to growing support for Euroskeptic movements across the bloc.

EU elections will be held May 23rd-26th, 2019.

A Bertelsmann Foundation study found that right-wing parties with a populist, nationalist or Euroskeptic bent received the highest level of voter approval of any single political grouping. 10.3 percent of voters said they would cast their ballots for right-wing parties, while only 6.2 percent said they positively identified with left-wing groups, and 4.4 percent with a Green party.

Right-wing parties have seen a surge in support amid growing disillusionment with Brussels. Those parties include Italy’s Lega Nord, France’s National Rally party, as well as the right-wing Alternative for Germany – commonly known by its German acronym, AfD.

The research indicates that voters care more about stopping parties and policies they dislike than advancing a positive agenda of their own, which, the researchers said, could end up feeding movements on the fringes.

“Many citizens no longer choose to back one party, but rather vote against parties they oppose the most,” said Robert Vehrkamp, a co-author of the Bertelsmann study.

“The populist parties have managed to create a stable and loyal voter base in a relatively short space of time,” he added.

Interesting, but aren't these two statements contradictory?

Nearly 24,000 voters were surveyed for the study, which conducted interviews in 12 EU member states. The EU’s parliamentary elections will be held May 26.

Even centrists such as French President Emmanuel Macron are beginning to bend to growing right-wing sentiment. In an apparent concession to the Yellow Vest protest movement, the French leader conceded that the Schengen agreement, which allows for visa-free travel between 22 EU member states and four non-EU countries, is no longer tenable. Echoing right-wing leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Macron also called for changes to the Dublin Regulation, which gives an EU member state the right to send back asylum seekers to their first country of entry to the bloc.

New charges: French Courts Won’t Leave Marine Le Pen Alone

Corruption is Everywhere - The Politicization of French Courts is Disgraceful

Marine Le Pen seems to be under attack from all fronts as fresh charges of embezzling public funds are reportedly

levied against her. She's also being investigated for posting an order for her psychiatric examination online.

EU funds misuse case

The president of France's National Rally (formerly Front National) has long been under investigation for breach of trust over her alleged misuse of EU funds.

However, on Friday AFP sources revealed that the charges have been upgraded to “embezzling public funds”, an offense that can land the politician in prison for 10 years and result in €1 million fine. 

Le Pen is accused of fictitiously employing her bodyguard and chief of staff as her assistants at the European Parliament while they actually did no EU work. Since the accusations emerged months before the May presidential election, the politician slammed the probe as a “political plot” against her.

Chief of staff Catherine Griset was charged with breach of trust, while bodyguard Thierry Legier was detained and interrogated. He was later released without any charges pressed against him.

Separate charges against le Pen stem from her releasing an order from magistrates in Nanterre near Paris in September to “undergo a psychiatric examination.” She denounced the order as “mind-blowing,” saying: “This regime is really starting to scare [us].” 

According to French laws, it is forbidden to publish indictments and other criminal or penal proceedings before they have been read out in court. 

The 2017 presidential candidate took to Twitter, this time without attaching any legal documents, to confirm the procedures against her. “Now they are going after me for having made public the order submitting me to a psychiatric expertise,” she wrote, adding that this “judicial harassment” is becoming “terrifying.”

The psychiatric assessment was ordered for a series of tweets dating back to December 2015. She posted three pictures of killings carried out by Islamic State terrorists accompanied by the text “Daesh [Arabic term for IS] is THIS!”

The tweets were in response to journalist Jean-Jacques Bourdin, who compared Le Pen’s nationalist rhetoric to that of the Islamic terrorist group.

I seriously doubt that any other French politician has to endure such absurd hyper-vigilance. So much for political neutrality in French courts.

Politics is a Dirty Game in France Especially for Right-Wing Nationalists

The banks, the courts, parliament, the EU Parliament have for many years attempted to destroy Marine Le Pen. Is there some collusion? Is Deep State at work here? Whoever is behind the constant persecution does not have the best interests of France in mind.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation

Jonathon Gatehouse · CBC News 

Leader of France's far-right National Rally party, Marine Le Pen, has been ordered to undergo a psychiatric assessment as it probes her posting of graphic images of Islamic State executions on social media. (Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images)

Le Pen probe

A French court has ordered far-right leader Marine Le Pen to undergo a psychiatric assessment as it probes her decision to publish graphic images of Islamic State executions on social media.

The 50-year-old head of the National Front — recently rebranded as the National Rally — posted three gruesome photos on Twitter in December 2015 after a journalist told a French television program that her party shared a "community of spirit" with the extremist group.

"ISIS is THIS," Le Pen wrote in an outraged response to the accusation, attaching pictures of a man being burned alive, another being run over by a tank, and the headless corpse of American journalist James Foley.

French law prohibits the dissemination of "violent messages that incite terrorism or … seriously harm human dignity."

Le Pen, a former member of the European Parliament, was only put under formal investigation in March after that body voted to strip her of immunity as part of an unrelated fraud investigation. If convicted, she faces up to three years in jail and a fine of €75,000.

Today, Le Pen reacted angrily to the court's assessment order, posting a photo of the legal papers on her Twitter account and calling the decision "crazy."

Later, speaking to reporters, she suggested that the evaluation is part of a wider attempt to silence her and the party, and said that she will skip the tests.

"I'd like to see how the judge would try and force me do it," Le Pen said.

Legal experts were quick to point out that such an assessment is in fact required under the law to establish whether she suffers from any mental illness that might have diminished her capacity to understand what she was doing when she posted the images. The psychiatrist will also determine whether she poses a risk to herself or the public.

It's pretty obvious she was angrily responding to an imbecilic media person and not trying to influence anyone to commit terrorism. A sane person would think just the opposite, that she is trying to reduce terrorism by revealing just how horrific it is. 

Nevertheless, I think she should take the psyche exam as long as it is not with a government or court-appointed psychiatrist, but one of impeccable character. I also think the interview should be recorded and reviewed by a panel of reputable psychiatrists, at Le Pen's discretion.

Other European populists were quick to leap to her defence.

"A court orders a psychiatric assessment for Marine Le Pen. Words fail me! Solidarity with her and with the French who love freedom!" said Matteo Salvini, Italy's interior minister and leader of the far-right League party, in a statement.

The National Front/Rally and its leader have suffered a number of setbacks since Emmanuel Macron resoundingly defeated Le Pen in the run-off election for France's presidency in 2017.

The campaign posters of French presidential election candidates Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron are seen in Henin-Beaumont, northern France, in April 2017. Macron resoundingly defeated Le Pen in the run-off election for France's presidency. (Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images)

French banks, which had denied her requests for campaign loans, closed her personal and party accounts last fall. Le Pen denounced the moves as political "persecution."

And she has been ordered to repay almost 300,000 euros ($455,000 Cdn) to the European Parliament after an internal investigation determined that she improperly used her office budget to pay aides to do non-parliamentary work for the National Front.

Le Pen, who maintains that she did nothing wrong, is appealing the findings and has refused to pay up. But the EU has been playing hardball, garnishing her salary and obtaining a temporary order from a French court to stop her party from receiving €2.35 million in state subsidies.

The EU parliament is far-left in ideology with many in the pocket of George Soros, and it will do all that it legally can (not morally can) to destroy Le Pen and her chances of becoming France's next President. Liberal loonies are also watching the EU lean more and more to the right and are desperate to stop the rush of sanity.

Liberals hate populism. They are quite sure that they know far better than ordinary people what those people want and need.

"The investigating judges are applying a death sentence by confiscating our public grant," she complained in July.

A final decision will handed down Sept. 26.

Le Pen has been busy trying to turn all those controversies to her advantage and whip up public sympathy.

"Our political adversaries want us to fail," she told a rally in the the northern town of Hénin-Beaumont earlier this month. "And when I hear the president of the Republic say that the National Rally is not a political opponent but an enemy, I can only conclude that he is doing everything within his power to break us down, to make us disappear from the country's political life."

And Le Pen is already campaigning for next spring's European elections, trying to form alliances with other far-right parties and tap into "The Movement," a new Steve Bannon-organized venture to raise funds and support for European populists.

Le Pen and former U.S. President Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon give a joint press conference during the National Rally's annual congress on March 10 in Lille, north of France. (Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images)

The strategy may be working.

As Macron's popularity plummets amidst the scandal over his former bodyguard's physical assault of anti-government protesters, Le Pen's fortunes are rising.

A poll last month put the National Rally "coude à coude" with the president's En Marche party, both with 21 per cent support for the coming European vote.