Police raided the headquarters of France's far-right National Rally party Wednesday in what officials said was an investigation into allegations of fraud, illegal loans and forged documents relating to the party's successful elections of recent years.
It is the latest probe into whether the party has broken campaign financing laws, with its founder and de-facto leader, Marine Le Pen, having been convicted of embezzlement in April and banned from office for five years.
On Wednesday, National Rally President Jordan Bardella wrote on X that 20 armed officers wearing bulletproof vests, accompanied by two judges, entered the party's Paris offices and seized emails, documents and accounting records.
He called it a "spectacular and unprecedented operation" that was "clearly part of a new harassment campaign." He added, "It is a serious attack on pluralism and democratic change."
Paris Deputy Prosecutor Charline Le Peutrec said the raid was carried out to investigate whether the party financed elections in 2022 and 2024 using "illegal loans," "overcharging for services" or generating "fictitious invoices for services" that were subsequently claimed on official expenses.
No one has been charged, Le Peutrec said in an emailed statement.
The searches were part of a wider investigation launched in July last year, when the prosecutor’s office launched a probe into Le Pen. It said Wednesday that the investigation related to “an unnamed person.” Le Pen, who denies the offenses and is appealing, was convicted of hiring four fictitious assistants while she was a lawmaker in the European Parliament.
The bombshell sentencing banning her from office means she will not be able to run in the 2027 presidential election despite leading the polls. However, the Paris Court of Appeal said it would issue a decision by next summer on her bid to overturn the ruling. She would be free to run in the election if she is cleared.
President Donald Trump in April described the case against her as a “witch hunt” and said on Truth Social that it “sounds like a ‘bookkeeping’ error to me.”
Days earlier, speaking to journalists, he also appeared to compare her legal issues to his own plight.
“She was banned for running for five years, and she’s the leading candidate. That sounds like this country, that sounds very much like this country,” said Trump, who in January was given an unconditional discharge following his historic hush-money felony conviction.
The anti-immigration National Rally party has grown in popularity in recent years, only to be narrowly kept out of government by a coalition of mainstream political forces after a snap election called last year by President Emmanuel Macron.
Macron has already served two terms and therefore cannot run again in 2027.
