Nanterre (AFP)

MEP Jean-François Jalkh and former MEP Sophie Montel, who has since left the party, have been indicted for "provoking racial discrimination" in a survey of a guide published before the municipal elections of 2014 Wednesday, sources said concordant.

Both were indicted in late October and mid-November, said a source close to the case, confirmed by the floor of Nanterre. Steeve Briois, current first vice-president of the RN, was placed under the intermediate status of assisted witness on November 5th.

These indictments come within the framework of a judicial inquiry opened after a complaint in 2014 by the association Maison des Potes implicating those responsible for the publication of the "Practical Guide of the elected municipal Front National".

In this document published several months before the municipal elections in March 2014, the FN (now RN) urged its future elected representatives to demand the application of the "national priority in access to social housing".

Mr. Jalkh was then director of publications of the FN and Ms. Montel in charge of the coordination of elected officials in the general secretariat. M. Briois, then Secretary-General, had prefaced the guide.

Solicited by AFP, Mr. Jalkh and Mr. Briois and their lawyers were not available. Ms. Montel's lawyer, who left the FN in 2017, did not wish to comment.

"It was time" reacted with AFP the vice president of the association House of Potes, Samuel Thomas, who regrets the "slowness" of justice in this case. "What we want above all is that the justice slice quickly and that can be shown that the party has claimed the commission of a criminal offense of a racist nature on the part of local elected officials".

In this case, the European Parliament lifted the immunity of Mr Jalkh in November 2016, and those of Steeve Briois and Sophie Montel in October 2018.

At the time, Mr. Briois, also mayor of Henin-Beaumont (Pas-de-Calais), had denounced a "new judicial persecution".

This case is "freedom of expression", then assured Ms. Montel. "As an opposition leader, we have every right to say that we are against a law, and we aspire to amend this law," she continued.

Mr. Jalkh was one of the defendants in the trial campaign kits of the FN, which ended on November 29 in Paris. Two years in prison suspended sentence were required against him.

© 2019 AFP