France's Le Pen must repay 300,000 euros to European Parliament: court

Source: Agence France-Presse

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen must repay nearly 300,000 euros to the European Parliament for funds paid incorrectly to an assistant, a top EU court ruled on Tuesday.

The General Court of the European Union, the bloc's second-highest tribunal, rejected a bid by Le Pen to overturn a ruling that she had wrongly used parliamentary funds to pay an aide who was based at her party's headquarters in Paris.

The Luxembourg-based court said in a statement that it "confirms the decision of the European Parliament to recover from Marine Le Pen MEP almost 300,000 euros ($347,000) for the employment of a parliamentary assistant, on the ground that she did not prove the effectiveness of that assistant’s work".

Le Pen, who lost the 2016 French presidential election in a run-off with Emmanuel Macron, provided no evidence "of any activity whatsoever on the part of the parliamentary assistant that comes under parliamentary assistance, which she moreover acknowledged during the hearing," the court said.

Read more: https://www.afp.com/en/news/206/frances-le-pen-must-repay-300000-euros-european-parliament-court-doc-1674x04