French police raided Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) headquarters on Wednesday over alleged campaign finance violations and fraud, prompting its president Jordan Bardella to decry a "new harassment campaign" against the far-right party.
The raid represents a fresh blow for the RN after Le Pen was convicted in March of embezzling EU funds and barred from running in the 2027 election. The RN has become France's largest single parliamentary party, but still remains toxic for many due to its history of anti-Semitism and racism.
Read moreFrench far-right leader Marine Le Pen appeals conviction in embezzlement trial
Bardella broke the news of Wednesday's raid on X.
"Since 8:50 this morning, the headquarters of the National Rally, including the offices of its leaders, have been subjected to a raid conducted by approximately twenty police officers ... accompanied by two investigating judges," Bardella wrote.
The Paris prosecutor's office confirmed the searches, which it said related to a probe into an unnamed person opened last week following several reports from institutional sources. It said searches were carried out at the RN's headquarters, as well as at the head offices of several unnamed companies and at the homes of those companies' executives.
The probe involves acts that may constitute fraud against a public figure, loans exceeding campaign-finance regulations, regular loans made to a political party and the party's acceptance of them, regular loans made to a candidate during a campaign and the candidate's acceptance of them, aggravated laundering of fraud, forgery and use of forged documents between 2020 and 2024, Paris prosecutors said.
The alleged violations were related to the financing of campaigns during the 2022 presidential, 2022 legislative and 2024 European campaigns, the office said. No person or legal entity has been charged in the probe and the investigation is still ongoing, the office said.
Though the once-taboo RN has managed to improve its reputation, it has struggled to shrug off accusations of financial impropriety during its rise from a scrappy fringe outsider to one of France's most powerful parties.
On Tuesday, in a separate probe, EU financial prosecutors said they had opened an investigation into alleged misuse of 4.3 million euros ($5.04 million) by Identity and Democracy, a now-defunct far-right European Parliament bloc that included the RN.
Le Pen aims to get her March conviction overturned so that she can run in the 2027 election, her fourth attempt at top office, but Bardella has said he will run if she cannot.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
(FRANCE 24 with Reuters)
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