Calls for French President Marine Le Pen to be jailed and banned

Prosecutors tonight called for would-be French President Marine Le Pen to be sent to prison and banned from standing for public office.

The dramatic demands were made on Wednesday in the Paris Correctional Court, where the 56-year-old is on trial for embezzlement.

She and 24 other members and staff of her National Rally (RN) party are accused of stealing a total of €6.8million (£5.6million) of European taxpayers' money by setting up fake jobs in the European Parliament over a period of at least a decade.

All deny the charges, but prosecutors demanded that Le Pen receive the harshest sentence of all.

They specifically asked the judge to give her five years in prison, three of which would be suspended, and a fine equivalent to £250,000.

Crucially, they also want the five year ban on Le Pen seeking public office, meaning she would be struck out of the 2027 presidential election.

After hearing the demands, Le Pen said: 'It's clear that the only thing the public prosecutors wanted was Marine Le Pen's exclusion from political life.'

She had continually accused the case of being 'politicaly motivated' and said the entire case is based on 'shaky' evidence.

Opinion polls continually place Le Pen as a favourite to become president on her fourth attempt, but she said 'millions of French people would be deprived of their presidential candidate'.

Chief prosecutor Louise Neyton urged the court to take into account the 'unprecedented nature' of the embezzlement, which took place over at least a decade.

The accused 'made the European Parliament their cash cow and were looking to continue to do so,' said Ms Neyton. 

She added: 'If the European Parliament had not blown the whistle, the facts would have continued and the embezzlement would have been even greater.'

The defence will now argue for an acquittal, before a verdict is announced early in 2025.

Specialist anti-corruption investigators have pointing to a 'sophisticated billing system' being set up by Le Pen, an MEP in Brussels from 2004 until 2017, to divert cash into party funds back in Paris.

The RN was called the National Front (FN) in those days, and many of its leading lights are on trial alongside Le Pen.

The party's founder is the convicted racist and Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen, who is also Marine Le Pen's father.

He was due to appear as a defendant too, but medics said the 96-year-old could stay away because of his 'deteriorating state of health'.

Embezzlement is a crime punishable in France by up to 10 years in prison, and penalties also available to judges include one million euros in fines.

The investigation into RN fraud began in March 2015, when the European Parliament announced that it had referred possible irregularities to the EU anti-fraud office.

It mainly concerned salaries paid to parliamentary assistants, and even to Jean-Marie Le Pen's bodyguard.

Ms Le Pen was in 2022 runner up to Emmanuel Macron in the race to become president of France, after a similar result in 2017.

Party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen in turn came second to Jacques Chirac in the presidential election of 2002.

Earlier this year, the RN did so well in European elections that President Macron called snap domestic parliamentary elections.

It led to the RN saying they were preparing for government, with party leader Jordan Bardella set to become prime minister.

Mr Bardella is a former EU parliamentary assistant for the RN, but is not implicated in the current trial.

In fact, the RN was beaten into third place in the election by the left-wing New Popular Front (NPF), and by Mr Macron's Renaissance party.

Mr Macron then appointed former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as prime minister, and he does not have a single RN or NPF minister in his government.