National Rally Offices Raided by French Police

French police raided the Rassemblement National (RN) political party headquarters in Paris on July 9, over allegations of campaign finance violations and fraud.

The party’s president, Jordan Bardella, confirmed the raid in a post on social media site X, labeling it a “new harassment campaign” against National Rally.

“Since 8:50 this morning, the headquarters of the National Rally—including the offices of its leaders—have been subject to a search conducted by about 20 financial brigade police officers, armed and wearing bulletproof vests, accompanied by two investigating judges,” Bardella wrote.

He also said that all the party’s emails, documents, and accounting records were being seized and that the party hadn’t been told the “precise grievances” that are alleged to have been perpetrated.

Bardella labeled the raid “spectacular and unprecedented.”

“Never has an opposition party faced such relentless targeting under the Fifth Republic,” he said.

Rassemblement National, which translates to National Rally, is the largest political party in the French National Assembly.

The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed to The Epoch Times by email that searches had been carried out, which it stated were related to a probe of an unnamed person opened last week following several reports from institutional sources.

The searches were sparked by a judicial inquiry that opened a year ago into numerous crimes, including fraud, money laundering, and forgery, prosecutors said.

“The judicial investigation should make it possible to determine whether these campaigns were financed in particular through illegal loans from individuals benefiting the party or candidates of the National Rally, as well as through overcharging for services or invoicing for fictitious services which were subsequently included in the requests for lump sum reimbursement by the state for campaign expenses,” the statement said.

It also said that so far, no one had been charged but that investigations were continuing.

In a later post on X, Bardella called the charges “vague” and “without a clear definition” and said they were already being investigated by the Campaign Accounts Commission.

“Suspecting our activists—often elderly, honest, committed—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 said.

He also said that the raid was “nothing to do with justice, everything to do with politics.”

This investigation is just the latest in a string of legal woes for the party, which has been subjected to probes by both French and European agencies.

On July 8, European Union financial prosecutors said they had opened an investigation into alleged misuse of 4.3 million euros ($5.04 million) by Identity and Democracy (ID), a now-defunct bloc within the European Parliament that included the RN.

At a press conference in Strasbourg on July 8, Bardella, who is also the current chairman of the new Patriots for Europe bloc, stressed that he wasn’t a member of ID.

He said that nor was his predecessor, Marine Le Pen, who at the time had stopped sitting as an MEP.

Bardella went on to say that he didn’t believe the EU administration was behaving in an “objective fashion” and that he didn’t see how the investigation would achieve anything given that ID no longer exists.

Le Pen, a longtime figurehead of the right in France and Europe, was convicted in March of embezzling EU funds. She was sentenced to four years in prison and barred from running in the 2027 presidential election, in which she had been expected to stand.

However, she has vowed to fight the conviction and, at a rally in April, announced her intention to appeal.

On July 8, she also filed an application to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against the ban on her standing for election.

A statement by RN said that Le Pen asks the ECHR “to order the French authorities to immediately put an end to the provisional execution of her ineligibility sentence, in order to remove the risk of major and irremediable harm to her rights and those of the voters that would result from her being unable to stand in the upcoming elections.”

Le Pen has run for president three times, in 2012, 2017, and 2022, reaching the second round in the latter two attempts but losing to current French President Emmanuel Macron on both occasions.