The European Parliament should start on Wednesday afternoon the procedure for lifting the parliamentary immunity of Marine Le Pen for alleged misappropriation of EU funds, said officials of the Parliament.
French judges have requested the waiver of the immunity of Marine Le Pen, as well as another representative of the FN in the European Parliament, Marie-Christine Boutonnet, who are suspected of having wages for the European Parliament assistants working actually for the FN.
The procedure for lifting the immunity of an MEP, which usually lasts a few months, through a committee stage and in plenary.
Marine Le Pen qualified for the second round of the French presidential election could be called by the Parliament at the beginning of next week to provide explanations, but could refuse to go there, pending maturity of vote on the 7th May.
The FN denies
The far-right party denies having developed a fraudulent scheme and denounced what she called a manipulation of justice for political purposes.
The European Parliament has already sanctioned Marine Le Pen to be paid as a European parliamentary assistant Catherine Griset, at a time when it was the Secretary and the Chief of the ruling Front National.
Without having paid the sum of almost 300,000 euros claimed by the Parliament as such, the FN presidential candidate has seen since February her MEP salary be reduced by half, about 3,000 euros, and other allowances have been withdrawn.
