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AP Photo/Michel Euler,file

Marine Le Pen refuses to pay back €300,000 in EU funds

Meanwhile, her challenger in the presidential election also faces an investigation.

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT will shortly begin taking money from the salary of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen to recover funds paid to a party assistant, a parliamentary source has said.

Le Pen, one of the front-runners in upcoming French presidential polls, had until midnight last night to repay nearly €300,000($325,000) but she bluntly rejected the demand just before the deadline.

The European Parliament says Le Pen, who is also an MEP as well as leader of France’s National Front, incorrectly used the funds to pay an aide, Catherine Griset.

Griset was based at the party’s headquarters in Paris and not at the assembly, which meets in both Brussels and Strasbourg in eastern France.

The parliamentary source in Brussels, who asked not to be named, said the aim was not to punish Le Pen but to recover the funds involved.

Le Pen and her representatives had had “many occasions” to explain her position, the source said.

MEP salaries are paid on the 15th of each month, so the procedure could begin shortly, the source said, adding that it could amount to €8,000 per month when other parliamentary payments are included.

The source said parliament believes this is the normal procedure in such cases.

Griset was employed by the National Front as an “accredited assistant” between 2010 and 2016.

The European Parliament is also looking into more than €41,500 paid to Thierry Legier, who is Le Pen’s bodyguard.

Le Pen told AFP she had never received the money and compared the case with allegations that her conservative challenger in the presidential election, Francois Fillon, paid his wife and children around €900,000 for “fake jobs” as parliamentary assistants.

“To repay the money, I would have had to receive it in the first place, but I am not Francois Fillon,” she said.

“Furthermore, I formally contest this unilateral and illegal decision,” Le Pen added.

Fillon

Meanwhile, Le Pen’s challenger Fillon has been defiant in the face of claims he paid his family the huge sums for doing “fake jobs”, accusing the incumbent Socialist government of mounting what he called an “institutional coup d’etat”.

“We know where this affair comes from, it comes from the government, it comes from the left,” the conservative Fillon told his supporters in a closed-door meeting, according to those present.

France Fillon Scandal AP Photo / Christophe Ena, File AP Photo / Christophe Ena, File / Christophe Ena, File

The scandal, which first erupted last week, is pulling down Fillon’s campaign, with a new poll showing that the former PM, who for weeks was the frontrunner in the race, would now be eliminated in the first round of the election in April.

An aide to Socialist President Francois Hollande responded to Fillon’s assertion by saying an ongoing investigation should be allowed to take its course, adding:

The only power is that of the justice system.

The Canard Enchaine newspaper reported today that Fillon had arranged for his wife Penelope to be paid around €830,000 as a parliamentary aide for more than a decade.

That was nearly twice as much as she was said to have earned in the original claims last week.

The paper has said it can find no one who recalls Welsh-born Penelope carrying out the work at the National Assembly building.

In another new claim, Fillon is said to have employed two of the couple’s five children to work in parliament, earning €84,000.

The new poll on Wednesday by the Elabe group showed Fillon would finish third behind far-right leader Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, the fast-rising centrist former banker, on 23 April.

Le Pen would score between 26 and 27%, Macron as high as 23% and Fillon around 20%, a fall of between five and six points since January.

Read: All staff evacuated as police negotiate with armed man in Turkish hospital

Read: OCI reverse decision to ban media from presidential elections

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    Mute Seán Ó Briain
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    Jun 26th 2022, 6:05 PM

    Don’t cut their pay, completely remove the DUP’s pay. Let’s see how long they want to sit on the sidelines when they are flat broke. They can have sectarianism or a salary, they can’t have both.

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    Mute Gerard McConnell
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    Jun 26th 2022, 6:53 PM

    @Seán Ó Briain: Rumours are rife that the DUP said yes for the first time since the Old Testament, they say God and country are important but cash is king.

    116
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    Mute Joe Johnson
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    Jun 26th 2022, 8:01 PM

    @Seán Ó Briain: And make Brandon Lewis redundant too.

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    Mute Stephen O'Neill
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    Jun 26th 2022, 8:15 PM

    @Seán Ó Briain: their pals in the UVF could spot them a few quid from their drug money. Removing the protocol would be a giant carrot for them.

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    Mute ÓDuibhír Abú
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    Jun 26th 2022, 8:30 PM

    @Gerard McConnell: Always said: Loyal to the Half Crown.

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    Mute Geoff Scargill
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    Jun 26th 2022, 6:12 PM

    Why ‘soon’? Why not now?!

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    Mute Pat Duggan
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    Jun 26th 2022, 6:42 PM

    I heard that interview where Brandon Lewis said that Jews were being prevented from practicing their faith. What kind of interviewer let’s him get away without explaining that.
    We are allowing politicians and media influencers of all shades to make daft claims without being called to account.

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    Mute Stephen Walshe
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    Jun 26th 2022, 6:59 PM

    @Pat Duggan: and orange one

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    Mute Pat Duggan
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    Jun 26th 2022, 8:09 PM

    @Stephen Walshe: This is just one example of the influence being wielded by probably less than 20% of the population. People with media influence capability are being allowed to convert the other 80% who do not use their critical powers to test the accuracy of what it being promoted. It used to be called propaganda.

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    Mute Niall Power
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    Jun 26th 2022, 6:16 PM

    Why is the Journal repeating the lie that the protocol is preventing the jewish community from practicing their faith? This has been proven to be untrue!

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    Mute sean o'dhubhghaill
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    Jun 26th 2022, 6:21 PM

    @Niall Power: Never heard that! What is meant to be the reason?

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    Mute Sean D
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    Jun 26th 2022, 6:21 PM

    @Niall Power: Had a few have you?

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    Mute E.J. Murray
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    Jun 26th 2022, 6:27 PM

    @Niall Power: — They’re only quoting Brandon Lewis’s lies above, but they should actually point out that he’s blatantly lying through his teeth, which seems to be on a par with most of the Tories in high office. They all spout real howlers, like Suella Braverman, who announced that NI is way behind the rest of the UK in the trade and economy area, which is the complete opposite of what the situation really is. The problem is that a lot of people believe the nonsense they come out with.

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    Mute Noel Doherty
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    Jun 26th 2022, 6:29 PM

    @Sean D: a few Jews??..

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    Mute Niall Power
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    Jun 26th 2022, 6:32 PM

    @Sean D: I don’t drink!

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    Mute Niall Power
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    Jun 26th 2022, 6:33 PM

    @sean o’dhubhghaill: lack of access to kosher foodstuffs.

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    Mute Lina Stein
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    Jun 26th 2022, 6:35 PM

    @sean o’dhubhghaill: Most of the Kosher goods came from the UK however, the shops and community have since found EU suppliers to deliver.

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    Mute M Bowe
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    Jun 26th 2022, 6:54 PM

    @sean o’dhubhghaill: there is a community of 75 Orthodox Jews who are facing DELAYS on kosher foods from uk. Yet there is an orthodox Jewish community in Dublin who are not having issues sourcing produce from uk. Hardly an insurmountable issue.

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    Mute Stephen O'Neill
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    Jun 26th 2022, 8:23 PM

    @Niall Power: sure look it, anyone who has an IQ in double figures know that anything coming out of a Tory/DUP is likely to be BS

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    Mute David cotter
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    Jun 26th 2022, 7:15 PM

    Haha the DUP will prove they are far more loyal to the half crown …then the crown

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    Mute Patrick O Connell
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    Jun 26th 2022, 8:26 PM

    @David cotter: all parties up there take the queens shillings. Cash is king for them all

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    Mute Bramley Hawthorne
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    Jun 26th 2022, 8:11 PM

    The DUP won’t play “in protest over the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol”. Also because they lost the election to the Taigs.

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    Mute Richard Ahern
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    Jun 26th 2022, 7:29 PM

    Proper bloody order! About time too. We’ll done Brandon Lewis.

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