Eight appeals to the Court of Cassation in the case involving FN European Parliament assistants

Paris – 15/07/2026: In the case concerning assistants to former Front National members of the European Parliament who were allegedly financed for improper purposes, eight appeals to the Court of Cassation have so far been filed. The appellants include Marine Le Pen, leader of the Rassemblement National group in the National Assembly, and Julien Odoul, member of parliament for the Yonne department and party spokesperson. As a result, part of the proceedings is once again being brought before France’s highest criminal court following the appeal ruling.

The appeals chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal found twelve defendants who had challenged the first-instance ruling guilty on July 7. According to the court, there was a system under which the European Parliament covered the salaries of parliamentary assistants even though they were in fact carrying out work for the national party and not work connected to the mandate of the respective member of the European Parliament.

The court assessed the damage to the European Parliament at 2.8 million euros and ordered the convicted defendants to compensate the financial loss. It imposed prison sentences, fines and additional penalties, including bans on standing for election. At the same time, the chamber acquitted defendants for certain periods because it did not consider the conditions for the respective offence to have been met. The ruling was therefore more nuanced than the first-instance judgment of March 31, 2025.

Julien Odoul received an eight-month suspended prison sentence on appeal, as well as a one-year suspended ban on standing for election. His seat in the National Assembly therefore remains intact. The court classified his previous work as a parliamentary assistant to then-FN MEP Mylène Troszczynski as handling proceeds from the embezzlement of public funds. According to the judiciary’s findings, he actually worked for Marine Le Pen’s circle between October 2014 and July 2015.

Marine Le Pen is also among the appeal defendants who have now referred the case to the Court of Cassation. An appeal to the Court of Cassation does not open a third instance for examining the facts. The Court of Cassation essentially reviews whether the lower court applied the law correctly, complied with procedural rules and provided legally sufficient grounds for its decision. If the ruling is overturned, the case may in principle be referred back to another court of appeal.

The prosecutor general at the Paris Court of Appeal stated on July 15 that he would not himself file an appeal to the Court of Cassation against the July 7 ruling. Nevertheless, the proceedings remain politically and legally significant for the eight appellants. They concern not only individual criminal penalties, but also the judicial assessment of financing party-political work with European Parliament funds. No date for a decision by the Court of Cassation has yet been announced.