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Verger, C. “What’s happening in the European Parliament?”, Blogpost, Jacques Delors Institute, April 2025

The political upheaval in France caused by the first instance conviction of Marine le Pen and her co-defendants did indeed originate in the European Parliament, and the situation of MEPs’ parliamentary assistants.

Some French politicians and even some journalists point out that, after all, parliamentary assistants are there to “play politics” with their MPs, who employ them according to their own priorities.

This ignores the specific nature of the organisation of assistants at the European Parliament.

Since a 2009 Council Regulation, there have been two categories of assistants: “accredited parliamentary assistants”, who are paid directly by the EP services for tasks specifically related to the MEP’s European activity, and whose budget may not be used for other purposes, and “local assistants”, who generally work in the MEP’s constituency and have an employment contract in accordance with national law.

The Paris Criminal Court’s decision at first instance concerns only the first category of accredited assistants, whose remuneration by the EP, and therefore the EU budget, was allegedly misappropriated for partisan purposes and with full knowledge of the facts by RN MEPs.

This point remains largely absent from the media. With that in mind, let’s return to the subject of our columns: What has become of the European Parliament since its election in June 2024?