The great emblezzer

Marine Le Pen barred from running for French presidency in 2027 | Marine Le Pen | The Guardian

Its the case of the great embezzler. No doubt:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/31/marine-le-pen-barred-from-running-for-french-presidency-in-2027

Le Pen and 24 party members, including nine former members of the European parliament and their 12 parliamentary assistants, were found guilty of a vast scheme over many years to embezzle European parliament funds, by using money earmarked for European parliament assistants to instead pay party workers in France.

The so-called fake jobs system covered parliamentary assistant contracts between 2004 and 2016, and was unprecedented in scale and duration, causing losses of €4.5m to European taxpayer funds. Assistants paid by the European parliament must work directly on Strasbourg parliamentary matters, which the judges found had not been the case…

Addressing the trial last month, Le Pen said she was innocent: “I have absolutely no sense of having committed the slightest irregularity, or the slightest illegal act.”