PARIS (AP) — For weeks, Marine Le Pen has devoted all her energy to fighting what she calls unfair accusations that his party has hijacked European Parliament Fund. The leading figure of the French far right now finds himself facing a crucial moment in a highly publicized trial where his eligibility for the 2027 presidential election is at stake.

Le Pen expects a guilty verdict as prosecutors close their case Wednesday and outline their proposed sentence. The trial is expected to end on November 27 and the verdict will be delivered later.

The National Rally and 25 of its leaders, including Le Penare accused of using money intended for EU parliamentary assistants to pay staff who worked for the party between 2004 and 2016, in violation of the 27-nation bloc’s regulations. The National Rally was called the National Front at the time.

As she went to court in Paris last week, Le Pen wished Donald Trump “every success” in a message on X. The French far-right leader, who has promised to run for the fourth time in the presidential election in 2027, would perhaps pay attention to that Trump’s felony conviction earlier this year didn’t keep him away from the White House.

From the start of this long and complex trial, Le Pen has been very present, sitting in the front row, staying long hours into the night and expressing her irritation at the allegations she considers false.

A lawyer by training, she follows the proceedings with extreme attention, sometimes puffing out her cheeks, making her disagreement known with powerful nods and striding forward to consult her lawyers, her heels clicking loudly on the hard parquet floor of the courtroom. courtroom.

If convicted, Le Pen and his co-defendants each face up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to 1 million euros ($1.1 million). But in recent days, Le Pen’s biggest concern has been the court’s ability to impose a period of ineligibility to run for office. A similar case involving a French centrist party ended in fines and suspended prison sentences earlier this year.

She could be seen discussing with her lawyers the legal complexities of such a scenario that could hinder, or even destroy, her goal of mounting another presidential bid. Le Pen was runner-up to President Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections, and her party’s electoral support has grown in recent years.

Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, Le Pen appeared to set the stage for a possible conviction by commenting on a guilty verdict she called predictable – but she said it would not was no question of giving up or reducing his political ambitions.

“I have the impression that we have not succeeded in convincing you,” Le Pen told the jury last week, detailing her arguments in an hour-and-a-half speech punctuated by political remarks apparently intended to be heard. by the many journalists present in the courtroom.

Le Pen has denied accusations that she was at the head of a “system” intended to siphon money from the European Parliament to benefit her party, which she led from 2011 to 2021.

Instead, she argued that the assistants’ missions should be adapted to the various activities of MEPs, including some highly political party-related missions.

Parliamentary aid “is a status,” she said. “It says nothing about the profession, nothing about the work required, from the secretary to the speechwriter, from the lawyer to the graphic designer, from the bodyguard to the office worker of the MEP.”

Le Pen’s co-defendants, most of whom owe their political or professional careers to him, testified under his close supervision.

Some collaborators provided embarrassed and confused explanations, faced with a lack of evidence that their work was related to the European Parliament.

Often, he was heard providing clarifications or corrections even when it was not his turn to address the court. Sometimes she would punctuate a point they were making with a loud “That’s it.”

Le Pen insisted on the fact that the party “never had the slightest reprimand from Parliament” until the alert launched in 2015 by Martin Schulz, then president of the European body, to the French authorities concerning possible fraudulent use of European funds by members of the National Front.

“Let’s go back in time. Either the rules didn’t exist or they were much more flexible,” she said.

Le Pen feared that the court would draw false conclusions from the party’s ordinary practices that it deemed legitimate.

“It’s unfair,” she repeated. “When you are convinced that tomatoes are synonymous with cocaine, the entire shopping list becomes suspect!”

The president of the court, Bénédicte de Perthuis, said that whatever the political issues at stake, the court must stick to legal reasoning.

“Ultimately, the only question that matters (…) is to determine, on the basis of all the evidence, whether the parliamentary assistants worked for the MEP to which they were attached or for the National Rally,” said de Perthuis.

Patrick Maisonneuve, a lawyer at the European Parliament, said the cost of the alleged misappropriation is estimated at 4.5 million euros. “In recent weeks it has become very clear that fraud is, I think, largely established,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

Maisonneuve declared that certain defendants seemed to be instructed “to give the same collective answers, as good soldiers, for the party and to save the boss”.

During her final hearing before prosecutors on Wednesday, Le Pen called on judges to see “evidence of (her) innocence.”

“The court can write that we are messy, sometimes disorganized… It’s not a crime,” she said.

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AP journalists John Leicester, Marine Lesprit and Alexander Turnbull contributed to this report.