Paris (AFP)

A "radical way to eliminate competition from the political chessboard": the face of some 12 million euros claimed by the state to the FN at the trial campaign kits, the defense denounced "the entry of the political in the courtroom "and pleaded as a whole the relaxe.

For four weeks, seven protagonists and three legal entities, including the FN, have appeared in the Paris Criminal Court to answer, according to the defendants, fraud, misuse of corporate assets and trust, recels or money laundering.

The judgment was reserved on April 24, one month after the municipal elections.

At the "litany of scams" listed by the prosecutor's office on Wednesday, defendants' lawyers pleaded on Thursday and Friday the "litany of inconsistencies" of the accusation, going so far as to compare the referral order of the judges of instruction Renaud Van Ruymbeke and Aude Buresi at an "industrial accident".

At the heart of the matter, the "kits" of campaign legislative 2012: consisting of leaflets, posters, a website and accounting services, they were sold 16,650 euros to candidates by Jeanne, the micro-party of Marine The Pen, and provided by the communication company Riwal.

In particular, the court will have to say whether this system hid overvalued benefits intended to deceive the State, which reimburses the expenses of the candidates exceeding 5% of the votes.

Jeanne lent the amount of the kit, with interest, to the candidates who returned the money immediately by buying the equipment. According to the magistrates instructors, this "return trip accounting" allowed Jeanne, almost devoid of own funds, to advance almost 9 million euros. The micro-party then waited for the reimbursement of the State to get enough to pay Riwal, its only intermediary with the printers.

All the protagonists of the affair are linked to Frédéric Chatillon, Riwal's boss and former president of the Gud, the right-wing student union, in the 90s. This close adviser to Marine Le Pen is suspected of having enriched himself fraudulently, as well as his entourage, thanks to clever montages.

On Wednesday, the prosecution ordered a fine of 500,000 euros against the FN - became in 2018 the National Gathering - while the state attorney, the only civil party in this trial, claimed him 11.6 million euros from damages and interests.

- "The block" and "the ax" -

What lead to the "judicial liquidation of an opposition party" when the front party is already heavily indebted, has unleashed Mr. Alexandre Varaut, lawyer Frédéric Chatillon and his company. For Roland Poynard, advocate of the elected Ile-de-France Axel Loustau, another former Gud, there is a "perfect consistency between the civil party and the public prosecutor for one to represent the block and the other the ax ".

"Some would be tempted to get what they could not politically judicially," lamented on his side David Dassa Le Deist, party lawyer.

Against Frédéric Chatillon, the prosecution had asked for four years in prison, two suspended, 200,000 euros fine and a definitive management ban.

He also requested the suspended prison for the Wallerand front-line party's treasurer from Saint-Just and the lawyer and MEP Jean-François Jalkh, and demanded their disqualification. Conditional or suspended prison sentences, fines and prohibitions to practice were sought against other defendants.

In its pleadings, the defense sought to demonstrate the legality of the system, hammering that the National Commission of Campaign Accounts had at the time validated the campaign accounts of the frontist candidates.

"From one end to the other of this instruction, there was no will of the magistrates to instruct to discharge," said Mr. François Wagner, counsel for Mr. Jalkh, pointing the "refusal of a tip the other to appoint experts ", especially to evaluate the" fair price "of a campaign kit.

"If there is overcharging, what is its amount?" Asked his side Me Varaut. "This is the black hole of this lawsuit".

On loans suspected to be fictitious, the lawyers argued that Jeanne had 1.2 million euros in equity, which in their view excludes the assumption that the micro-party was an empty shell.

© 2019 AFP