Marine Le Pen's party suspected of defrauding the EU for almost 5 million euro

SheWolf said:

Look at all the scandals Trump survived, and she is supposed to be France's Trump

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It is harder to get away with things in Europe.

Dirt coming out on a right wing politician while the media never reports on the establishment politician... this truly does sound familiar.

Color me surprised Marine Le Pen who is the real "change" candidate (although I am now extremely dubious as to how one can achieve change in the modern political "process" at this point) is facing a lot of flak from the paid media machine.

It truly would be awesome to have unfiltered politics these days. Unfortunately, conservatism in any sense is censored (it's worse in Europe) to the extent where you can hardly consider it fair. Hell, Le Pen is fiscally on the left but simply believes that France should be prouder nationally speaking and maybe pay more attention to those things we used to call borders.

If you actually think Marine Le Pen is a far right-wing Hitler with a vagina, you are a complete brain-dead idiot who is unable to think critically whatsoever. These people are probably the same people who called Trump "literally Hitler" during the campaign.

To be sure these reports are fishy to say the least... my point is that I've almost completely lost faith in any sort of fair politics in which people win based on merit and policy rather than lose based on how many scandals they were associated with. It's one of the reasons why I've lost so much faith in any sort of politics in general.

Koke said:

Dirt coming out on a right wing politician while the media never reports on the establishment politician... this truly does sound familiar.

Color me surprised Marine Le Pen who is the real "change" candidate (although I am now extremely dubious as to how one can achieve change in the modern political "process" at this point) is facing a lot of flak from the paid media machine.

It truly would be awesome to have unfiltered politics these days. Unfortunately, conservatism in any sense is censored (it's worse in Europe) to the extent where you can hardly consider it fair. Hell, Le Pen is fiscally on the left but simply believes that France should be prouder nationally speaking and maybe pay more attention to those things we used to call borders.

If you actually think Marine Le Pen is a far right-wing Hitler with a vagina, you are a complete brain-dead idiot who is unable to think critically whatsoever. These people are probably the same people who called Trump "literally Hitler" during the campaign.

To be sure these reports are fishy to say the least... my point is that I've almost completely lost faith in any sort of fair politics in which people win based on merit and policy rather than lose based on how many scandals they were associated with. It's one of the reasons why I've lost so much faith in any sort of politics in general.

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Amateurs and the second rate, that's pretty much what we get.

But we deserve it, we refuse to decide what we want, demand it all we do, and we refuse to treat our publiuc servants decently.

vesper said:

A female school teacher having consensual sex with a 16 year old male student ................~

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Am I supposed to take merely your word for that having happened in this case?

What else have you got?

Interesting BTW how you go about getting all indignant over accusations levelled at Marine but have no qualms going down the same road when it comes to her opponent.

Even more interesting considering how what leads to the tag put on Marine is well documented, where your allegation is nothing of the sort.

That's commonly termed hypocrisy.

A small fact for the right wing Americans cheering for Le Pen.

1) Le Pens father, and the founder of the FN, is a convicted holocaust denier and anti-Semite.
2) FN has members in its top ranks, who all have links to neo nazi groups.

And finally...

Le Pen´s 25% vote does not correspond to the parliament, where FN has 2 seats out of 577 in the National Assembly (House) and none in the Senate. Now Le Pen has been consistently polling 20-25% for years, so why is this not reflected in the parliament?

Simple, in France there is a long tradition of fighting against the FN. The left and right simply band together and support the non FN candidate regardless of which party he or she represents.

So for example, you have a seat, where there are 4 candidates. 1 FN, 1 right winger and 2 left wingers. The FN and right winger get most votes and go to a run off.. the left wingers then vote for the right winger to prevent FN getting the seat.

Hence for Le Pen to win, then French society would have to change overnight and change their voting patterns dramatically. Can it happen? Sure, but is it realistic? hell no, there is nothing to support this.

And you cant really compare it to Trump. GOP voters are extremely loyal and hate the Democrats. So they would never (on average) vote against a GOP candidate, who ever it is. Now the French are also loyal unless there is a common enemy, and in this case it is Le Pen. Time and time again, the right and left have joined forces to defeat Le Pen and her party on the national scale. It is harder at local level, which is where FN have a lot more power.

So people from the other side of the pond can promote the nazi loving Le Pen all they want, but realistically a week a way from the final election day, she does not have much of a chance.... 30% of the vote is where I expect her to land. Her only real hope is that people stay home, while her faithful 25% stream out near 100%, and even then the math is against her.

vesper said:

Le Pen and Macron are neck and neck of course some unfounded allegations would come out to smear Le Pen.
But then again the Le Pen campaign has been bringing to light Macron’s wife, the drama teacher, Brigitte Trogneux. She is 24 years older than he is.
It’s not clear exactly when Macron and Trogneux had their first sex romps. He was roughly 16 at the time and she was pushing 40 and was married. She had three children with her first husband. Most Americans frown on such things in fact we put teachers in jail for such things in this country. However that didn't stop leftist Joy Baher calling Marine Le Pen a Nazi on the View to counter Macron's sexual relationship at the age of 16 with his former teacher 24 years older etc.... Joy Behar on the View and a leftie in her own right can declare Le Pen a Nazi with no proof makes Macron just peachy. See how it works?

Joy Behar: Marine Le Pen's A 'Nazi' | The Daily Caller

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Macron and Le Pen are nowhere near level pegging. Only in her fevered dreams!

Manc Skipper said:

Macron and Le Pen are nowhere near level pegging. Only in her fevered dreams!

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Looking at the polls there is currently about a 20%+ gap between them. I guess for some that means neck-and-neck. :lol:

Chagos said:

Am I supposed to take merely your word for that having happened in this case?

What else have you got?

Interesting BTW how you go about getting all indignant over accusations levelled at Marine but have no qualms going down the same road when it comes to her opponent.

Even more interesting considering how what leads to the tag put on Marine is well documented, where your allegation is nothing of the sort.

That's commonly termed hypocrisy.

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There is no hypocrisy, Macron wrote about his love affair with his teacher in his book Revolution. Also there have been numerous interviews with French publications where more details of this relationship along with a documentary produced by France 3 that interviewed past students and others. It was reported that Macron's parents were against the relationship and pulled their son from Amiens the Catholic school in Northern France and sent him to Paris. But according to Brigitte Trogneux they remained in touch and spoke for hours over the phone. Upon Marcron's 18th birthday, Brigitte divorced her husband and moved to Paris with her lover once he turned 18 and the two became an official couple. They lived together for 7 years and did not marry till Macron entered politics in 2007.

Now in France some try to spin this as some clandestine love story. Here in the U.S. most call it something else.

LadyMoonlight said:

Any time a conservative politician is starting to do really well in a poll, I think, here we go, when will such allegations begin?

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Except Le Pen is no kind of conservative at all. She's a big government, radical, interventionist, authoritarian nationalist. Now I know a lot of conservatives take some of those positions, but Le Pen is nothing like a conservative. Angela Merkel is a conservative, Theresa May is a conservative, Francois Fillon is a conservative. Le Pen is a far-right demagogue, but if that's the kind of person DP conservatives want to ally themselves with, go for it.

Manc Skipper said:

Macron and Le Pen are nowhere near level pegging. Only in her fevered dreams!

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They didn't think Trump would win either. And the Brits up till the day of voting thought Brexit would fail too. We shall see.

vesper said:

There is no hypocrisy,

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There is and most demonstrably. It lies in your condemning charges being levelled at Le Pen while engaging in the very same antics when it comes to Macron.

Macron wrote about his love affair with his teacher in his book Revolution. Also there have been numerous interviews with French publications where more details of this relationship along with a documentary produced by France 3 that interviewed past students and others. It was reported that Macron's parents were against the relationship and pulled their son from Amiens the Catholic school in Northern France and sent him to Paris. But according to Brigitte Trogneux they remained in touch and spoke for hours over the phone. Upon Marcron's 18th birthday, Brigitte divorced her husband and moved to Paris with her lover once he turned 18 and the two became an official couple. They lived together for 7 years and did not marry till Macron entered politics in 2007.

Now in France some try to spin this as some clandestine love story. Here in the U.S. most call it something else.

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Long winded deflection not at all leading away from the fact that you are unable to provide evidence of there having been a form of sexual relationship and thus misconduct between a teacher and a minor. Maybe, maybe not, point being that nobody saw fit to go prosecuting.

Beyond which your other "facts":roll: are not at all sound, in that Macron was either 28 or 29 years old when his wife divorced her former husband (and she and Macron subsequently married).

LadyMoonlight said:

I wondered when accusations of some kind of criminal activity were going to start happening. The better she, or her party does, the more lefties get worried about any kind of success for her, the more chances there are of this happening. She must be doing well to draw these allegations. The timing, of course, is particularly important. Any time a conservative politician is starting to do really well in a poll, I think, here we go, when will such allegations begin?

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The timing, of course, is particularly important.

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........and you are clearly most uninformed on it.

Koke said:

Dirt coming out on a right wing politician while the media never reports on the establishment politician... this truly does sound familiar....................~

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All of which goes to show how totally uneducated on French affairs you are. If that were not so you'd be aware of extensive reporting having been done on Hollande's peccadilloes of the past as well as those of Mitterand, not to mention the recent allegations of corruption addressed at Fillon.

PeteEU said:

A small fact for the right wing Americans cheering for Le Pen.

1) Le Pens father, and the founder of the FN, is a convicted holocaust denier and anti-Semite.
2) FN has members in its top ranks, who all have links to neo nazi groups ~

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Doesn't matter, because Trump don't you know? Le Pen's antisemitism and holocaust denial is just sticking it to the global elite, wherever and whoever they or it is / are.

Sometimes I'm embarrassed to think some of those people call themselves "conservative."

vesper said:

Le Pen and Macron are neck and neck of course some unfounded allegations would come out to smear Le Pen.
But then again the Le Pen campaign has been bringing to light Macron’s wife, the drama teacher, Brigitte Trogneux. She is 24 years older than he is.
It’s not clear exactly when Macron and Trogneux had their first sex romps. He was roughly 16 at the time and she was pushing 40 and was married. She had three children with her first husband. Most Americans frown on such things in fact we put teachers in jail for such things in this country. However that didn't stop leftist Joy Baher calling Marine Le Pen a Nazi on the View to counter Macron's sexual relationship at the age of 16 with his former teacher 24 years older etc.... Joy Behar on the View and a leftie in her own right can declare Le Pen a Nazi with no proof makes Macron just peachy. See how it works?

Joy Behar: Marine Le Pen's A 'Nazi' | The Daily Caller

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She's going to pull it off against the neophyte commie... The fraud that is Macron is slowly being exposed.
It is a race against time, and against the globalist astroturfing campaign to keep the truth concealed.
If the French left are still French, Le Pen will win.

Infinite Chaos said:

Doesn't matter, because Trump don't you know? Le Pen's antisemitism and holocaust denial is just sticking it to the global elite, wherever and whoever they or it is / are.

Sometimes I'm embarrassed to think some of those people call themselves "conservative."

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slick said:

~ against the globalist ~

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Not even a page later. :doh

Infinite Chaos said:

Not even a page later. :doh

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Heck, just a post (later).

The predictability is stunning in its simplicity.

Infinite Chaos said:

Not even a page later. :doh

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They can't help themselves.

I find the Mélenchon position interesting though. I'm hearing a lot of people on the left (soft and hard) condemning him for not endorsing Macron. From my position, were I French, I would vote Macron next weekend, but with a clothes-peg clamped over my nose. He stinks of the complacent, EU-knows-best, centrist, elitism of the likes of Schäuble, Dijsselbloem and Juncker; the ones who got the EU into the mess it's in now, who pay lip-service to subsidiarity, but implement it not one iota. I could be wrong and he could be the fresh wind that blows the corporatists away, but I doubt it. If it weren't for the anti-semitism and the Islamophobia, I'd probably vote FN too, but take those things away and Le Pen's nothing but a nationalist syndicalist and wouldn't have a neo-Nazi base to do her leg-work. She'd get my anti-establishment vote and lose a hundred xenophobes'.

So, Mélenchon says "not a single vote for Le Pen", but doesn't say, "Macron's the one!" I could live with that, but the liberal centre and centre-left cries foul. Typical. It's like Nick Cohen and Peter Mandelson are speaking French, albeit heavily accented.

PeteEU said:

Hmm you dont seem to understand....we are not talking about the running of elections, as in the ballot boxes and so on.. that is done by the state. We are talking about the party´s campaign.

Party funding for elections comes in part from the state and in part from party members and in some jurisdictions, from donations (highly limited). These funds are used to run the party´s election campaign for specific elections. For example in France, companies are not allowed to give money to political parties and private persons are highly limited.

So when it comes to the EU, the EU puts money into the pot (as agreed by the countries), the individual nation does often as well and so on. That funding is specific for the EU election and nothing else, and what Le Pen is accused off, is using that funding for something else than an EU election.

Basically, picture this.. You are a CEO, you have a company credit card that is only to be used for company relevant things. You use it to fund your mistress and buy drugs. That is fraud. That is what she and others have done.

Oh and lets not forget, running a political campaign is cheap in Europe versus the US. I once saw numbers that stated that the whole election budget for all parties in Holland was less than one US senator in a major state.. just saying.

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Yep you can see why the EU is looked on as a gravy trian. All that money for political parties to play with, now don't spend it on anything other than promoting the EU now...

Tim the plumber said:

Yep you can see why the EU is looked on as a gravy trian. All that money for political parties to play with, now don't spend it on anything other than promoting the EU now...

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All that money? LOL.. compared to an US election, "all that money" is peanuts.

Lets put some perspective into this...

UK election 2010, the spending was in total.. yes in total.. around 31 million UK pounds. This is for the whole country.

EU election 2009 in the UK, the total spending by political parties was 8.454.540 UK pounds.

In the grand scale of things, this is peanuts, especially when compared to the US elections which cost billions.

What Le Pen defrauded was over a decade, and was only 5 million Euros in total!

As for the EU being a gravy train.. the EU budget is small, and under relatively tight control. Now real gravy trains are the budgets of national governments, that for the large nations, dwarf those of the EU.

PeteEU said:

All that money? LOL.. compared to an US election, "all that money" is peanuts.

Lets put some perspective into this...

UK election 2010, the spending was in total.. yes in total.. around 31 million UK pounds. This is for the whole country.

EU election 2009 in the UK, the total spending by political parties was 8.454.540 UK pounds.

In the grand scale of things, this is peanuts, especially when compared to the US elections which cost billions.

What Le Pen defrauded was over a decade, and was only 5 million Euros in total!

As for the EU being a gravy train.. the EU budget is small, and under relatively tight control. Now real gravy trains are the budgets of national governments, that for the large nations, dwarf those of the EU.

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Ya you are right, why bother to try to do things right, surely the little people dont care about EU budget corruption.

Hawkeye10 said:

Ya you are right, why bother to try to do things right, surely the little people dont care about EU budget corruption.

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err people do care, that is why Le Pen is under investigation! Budget corruption and election funding corruption happens all over Europe and is dealt with by local authorities. Right now there are 20 plus Conservative candidates under fraud investigation in the UK for this very thing. In Denmark there is a similar investigation into some EU funding fraud.

Are you trying to deflect away from Le Pen and her corruption or something by attacking the EU and random people/organisations?

Andalublue said:

They can't help themselves.

I find the Mélenchon position interesting though. I'm hearing a lot of people on the left (soft and hard) condemning him for not endorsing Macron. From my position, were I French, I would vote Macron next weekend, but with a clothes-peg clamped over my nose. He stinks of the complacent, EU-knows-best, centrist, elitism of the likes of Schäuble, Dijsselbloem and Juncker; the ones who got the EU into the mess it's in now, who pay lip-service to subsidiarity, but implement it not one iota. I could be wrong and he could be the fresh wind that blows the corporatists away, but I doubt it. If it weren't for the anti-semitism and the Islamophobia, I'd probably vote FN too, but take those things away and Le Pen's nothing but a nationalist syndicalist and wouldn't have a neo-Nazi base to do her leg-work. She'd get my anti-establishment vote and lose a hundred xenophobes'.

So, Mélenchon says "not a single vote for Le Pen", but doesn't say, "Macron's the one!" I could live with that, but the liberal centre and centre-left cries foul. Typical. It's like Nick Cohen and Peter Mandelson are speaking French, albeit heavily accented.

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I can fully understand Mélenchon's position of endorsing neither of the candidates that made it to the heat.

There are plenty of ways of compromising the integrity of one's own position and compromise is the operative word here in that it has different meanings that can lead to different effects. As such I can't join into the general condemnation and I'm far from being particularly sympathetic towards him and his crowd.

As to what really rattles the French cage (or should), I see the desire pursued on all points of the political compass to deflect from the simple fact that scape-goating someone or something else will not address the actual problem that France has created for herself and still faces.

One can make a case for the EU having contributed to all of it or vehemently deny that, France is where she is by primarily her own design. Better said by past failings of elected governments of whatever leaning, all of them eventually laying the blame for own failings at the doorstep of Brussels and Strasbourg and inviting the public to follow down the same road of convenience.

Incidentally far from being an exclusively French spin.

I also find Macron nothing to write home about, mostly because I wouldn't know what to write (as yet). Marine wouldn't get mention in any such letter either but in her case on account of certain things better not being put into writing.

I'd vote Macron, were I French, and I'd be darn bitter about it.

PeteEU said:

All that money? LOL.. compared to an US election, "all that money" is peanuts.

Lets put some perspective into this...

UK election 2010, the spending was in total.. yes in total.. around 31 million UK pounds. This is for the whole country.

EU election 2009 in the UK, the total spending by political parties was 8.454.540 UK pounds.

In the grand scale of things, this is peanuts, especially when compared to the US elections which cost billions.

What Le Pen defrauded was over a decade, and was only 5 million Euros in total!

As for the EU being a gravy train.. the EU budget is small, and under relatively tight control. Now real gravy trains are the budgets of national governments, that for the large nations, dwarf those of the EU.

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I know that compared to the US it's tiny but we all see the impact of how money from bug business causes laws to be written that favor those controling big business. That the EU's politicians are restricted in where they can get money from at all and have torely upon the EU makes the same bias happen here. Or did. Bye bye EU.

Andalublue said:

They can't help themselves.

I find the Mélenchon position interesting though. I'm hearing a lot of people on the left (soft and hard) condemning him for not endorsing Macron. From my position, were I French, I would vote Macron next weekend, but with a clothes-peg clamped over my nose. He stinks of the complacent, EU-knows-best, centrist, elitism of the likes of Schäuble, Dijsselbloem and Juncker; the ones who got the EU into the mess it's in now, who pay lip-service to subsidiarity, but implement it not one iota. I could be wrong and he could be the fresh wind that blows the corporatists away, but I doubt it. If it weren't for the anti-semitism and the Islamophobia, I'd probably vote FN too, but take those things away and Le Pen's nothing but a nationalist syndicalist and wouldn't have a neo-Nazi base to do her leg-work. She'd get my anti-establishment vote and lose a hundred xenophobes'.

So, Mélenchon says "not a single vote for Le Pen", but doesn't say, "Macron's the one!" I could live with that, but the liberal centre and centre-left cries foul. Typical. It's like Nick Cohen and Peter Mandelson are speaking French, albeit heavily accented.

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Thanks Andy, some really good observations. There does need to be a shake up for those in the EU but I don't think le Pen is the person to do it properly. Mélenchon was anti EU too but for different reasons from le Pen. I feel if Macron wins through he would make a big mistake following the more EU line that the others you name often push. This article has a pertinent line too -

More worrying, and perhaps more likely, is the prospect of Paris turning its back. The EU would not survive Frexit, though “that seems quite remote”, said one senior diplomat. “But active inside opposition would almost be worse.”

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