The headquarters of France’s National Rally (RN) party was raided on Wednesday morning, party leader Jordan Bardella said.
“This morning, two dozen armed police officers in body armour and two investigators conducted a search at the headquarters of the National Rally, including the offices of party leaders,” Bardella wrote on xis X.
The RN leader noted that the police seized all the party’s accounting documents, without informing the party of the grounds for the search.
“All documents relating to the party’s election campaigns are now in the hands of the judicial authorities,” he added, calling the investigation “an attack on pluralism and the peaceful transfer of power.”
A preliminary investigation into the RN has been ongoing since July 2024 and concerns the financing of election campaigns ahead of the 2022 presidential election, the 2022 French parliamentary election and the 2024 European Parliament election, the prosecutor’s office said.
The aim of the investigation is to determine whether the party resorted to excessive borrowing from individuals during election campaigns. Election campaign financing rules do not prohibit borrowing from individuals, but a number of conditions must be met and there must be a limit on the amount borrowed.
