Procedural fireworks: how Marine Le Pen's defense is trying to torpedo her trial in the parliamentary assistants affair

Le cas Louis Aliot sera examiné le 22 octobre MAXPPP – MICHEL CLEMENTZ

Les avocats de Marine Le Pen et d’autres prévenus du procès ont utilisé tous les arguments de procédure possibles pour tenter, sans succès, de torpiller la poursuite.

Marine Le Pen was absent from the court to attend the Assembly for the Prime Minister's statement, her lawyer occupied the second day of the hearing this Tuesday with a festival of pleadings, in the presence of the mayor of Perpignan, Louis Aliot.

Me Rodolphe Bosselut stood up no less than three times to try to have the trial which targets the alleged misappropriation by the RN of European public funds intended to finance the jobs of European parliamentary assistants postponed or cancelled.

“Preliminary question”(a request for referral of the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union), request for annulment of the referral order, request for limitation: the first request was dismissed, while the court should postpone its response on the other two to the judgment on the merits. Mr Bosselut was thus able, from the outset, to storm in reality on the substance.

Never set foot in the European Parliament

"The investigating judges did not examine a 500-page document which shows that Catherine Griset, parliamentary assistant in Strasbourg to Mrs Le Pen, really worked in the European Parliament", he said, listing the supposed tasks.

The case of Catherine Griset, assistant and then chief of staff at Marine Le Pen's RN, is a sensitive point in the affair. Paid between 2,813 and 4,472 euros gross monthly between 2008 and 2016 from community funds, she has, according to the investigation, almost never set foot in the European Parliament but was for example between 15 and 22 days per month at the RN headquarters in 2015-2016.

On the issue of prescription, Mr Bosselut also supported a request concerning the case – even more embarrassing – of Thierry Légier, bodyguard of Jean-Marie then of Marine Le Pen, paid as parliamentary assistant from 5,236 euros gross monthly in 2005 to 9,078 euros gross monthly figures over three months in 2011.

“Misleading the citizen”

“Nothing was concealed, everyone knew him as the security officer at the European Parliament”, said Mr Bosselut, stressing that this situation had in fact started in 1992.

This lack of concealment would lead to the prescription of the case, in his eyes. This will be judged with the merits.

Several other defendants have not been left out of technical arguments, adding to the panoply in particular the "priority question of constitutionality" (a request consisting of requesting the referral to examine the conformity of the case with the Constitution).

In this case, nothing less than the quality of "charged with a public service mission" of a&hellip MP, in order to repel the very possibility of the accusation of embezzlement.

“A crusade against him”

Finally, the procedural argument, worn out to the bone and always rejected in other cases, was recycled, according to which judges do not have the right to control the use of public funds by elected officials, because it would be an "attack on the separation of powers".

A strategy doomed to failure, to which Me Patrick Maisonneuve, lawyer for the European Parliament, civil party, replied virulently: "We must stop saying that the European Parliament wanted to mistreat or wring the neck of the RN, to lead a crusade against him."

And to begin the battle, looking at the defendants: "They have not only deceived the institution, but above all the taxpayer, the citizen."

The trial will begin the examination of the merits this Wednesday with the case of the RN, prosecuted as a legal entity. That of Marine Le Pen will be examined between October 14 and 16, that of the mayor of Perpignan Louis Aliot will be examined on October 22.

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