France’s right-wing National Rally (RN) has denounced what it called a co-ordinated “harassment campaign” after police raided its headquarters in Paris.
The raid on on July 9 was the latest incident in a widening web of legal troubles engulfing the party both in France and Brussels.
Police seized internal emails, documents and financial records as part of an investigation linked to suspicions over alleged illegal campaign financing, spanning RN’s regional, presidential, legislative, and European election campaigns.
Party officials, though, rejected any suggestion of wrongdoing.
According to RN, the raid centred on what it described as a “loan case” involving supporters lending money to finance campaigns — a necessity, it said, given that French banks refused to work with the party.
“We’ve seen 75-year-old citizens, who simply loaned money, treated like criminals,” Philippe Olivier MEP, a special adviser to Marine Le Pen, RN’s de facto leader, told Brussels Signal on July 10.
“Where exactly is the illegality? People lent us money — nothing more.” He continued: “There’s clearly an intent to block our ability to fund our campaigns.”
For Olivier, there was no legal issue but, rather, the weaponisation of the justice system against the principal force of opposition in France.
“There’s clearly an intent to block our ability to fund our campaigns,” he said.
“The system is defending itself—and it has gone mad. The media tried to turn this into a major scandal. But all it will do is trigger a wave of support,” he added.
Despite its troubles, for now, RN’s electoral standing appeared unscathed. “Marine Le Pen hasn’t lost a single point in the polls. We’ve gathered 700,000 signatures of support,” Olivier noted.
Data published by survey institute Elabe on April 5 showed RN was still leading the polls.
Despite French National Rally de facto leader Marine Le Pen’s recent conviction, the party has remained a potent force, with its President Jordan Bardella performing strongly in recent polls. https://t.co/wUADGOv2OY
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) April 8, 2025
Jordan Bardella, the RN president, was defiant.
“This operation, spectacular and unprecedented, is clearly part of a new harassment campaign. It is a serious attack on pluralism and democratic alternation,” he said on X on July 9.
Such raids were not without precedent in France, though.
Under the Fifth Republic, similar operations have hit the Socialist Party, Les Républicains, the Democratic Movement and the radical left-wing La France Insoumise.
RN’s defenders argued, though, that this time the stakes and the intensity were higher.
Jean-Paul Garraud, MEP for the French National Rally party and delegation leader in the Patriots for Europe Group in the European Parliament, has lambasted the conviction of party leader Marine Le Pen, calling it a political death sentence. https://t.co/EJkAcatgkq
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) April 2, 2025
Adding to RN’s troubles on July 9, the European Court of Human Rights dismissed Le Pen’s request to suspend the immediate application of a five-year ineligibility sentence she received after being found guilty in March of misusing public funds.
But the party remained unbowed. “We will exhaust every legal avenue available to us,” said Olivier.
“We believe this decision is profoundly unjust. If the law is applied fairly, Marine Le Pen will be cleared.”
He further argued that the parliamentary assistants’ case hinged on a selective administrative interpretation.
“If it were our colleagues in EP [European Parliament], the issue would have been resolved quietly. But in our case, we are being hit with defamatory accusations, purely to tarnish our reputation.”
Recently, the European party Patriots for Europe (PfE), of which RN was a part of, took the Authority for European Political Parties and European Political Foundations (APPF) to court, accusing it of alleged “political bias and a lack of independence”.
The PfE has also accused the European Parliament of allegedly restricting funding to right-wing parties by selectively enforcing its own rules.
A separate investigation was also opened on July 8 by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) into the now-defunct Identity and Democracy (ID) group.
According to EPPO, the group was suspected of allegedly misusing €4.3 million in EU funds between 2019 and 2024, with much of the money allegedly benefiting companies tied to a former Le Pen adviser.
While RN’s slogan for years was “Clean hands, high head”, critics have suggested the party now sounded less like a force preparing to govern and more like a movement on the defensive.
Marine Le Pen has declared her determination to remain in the race for France’s next presidential election in 2027 – despite an ineligibility sentence that bars her from running. https://t.co/eG4TrAwsXC
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) April 11, 2025
