Marine Le Pen European Parliament seeks €339,000 from Marine Le Pen National Front leader accused of misuse of parliamentary resources.

PARIS — The European Parliament is seeking to recover €339,000 from French far-right leader Marine Le Pen as part of an investigation into an alleged misuse of funds, her lawyer confirmed Monday.

National Front leader Le Pen is accused of breaking the Parliament's rules by having two assistants — Thierry Légier and Catherine Griset — carry out non-Parliamentary work while being paid by the EU institution. She is being investigated by the EU's anti-fraud watchdog, OLAF.

Klaus Welle, secretary-general of the Parliament, wrote to Le Pen in September requesting proof that her assistants were respecting the terms of their employment. Le Pen was given a month to respond, but failed to do so.

Her lawyer Marcel Ceccaldi said he planned to appeal in the European Court of Justice.

Ceccaldi added that lawyers from the Front were planning a press conference at the European Parliament to denounce what he said was the "persecution" of a major Euroskeptic figure.

"This is an enterprise that aims to silence those who criticize the functioning of the European Union," he said. "It's a politically motivated move, and we plan to fight it by making a global case against Parliament and the [EU] institutions, which have overstepped their power."

Ceccaldi, confirming information first reported by French investigative website Mediapart, said Parliament had not yet notified Le Pen of any move to dock her pay.

However, he said he expected the Parliament to soon begin docking more than half of her salary and all of her expenses in order to recoup the money — a serious financial blow for the leader of a party that is cash-strapped and struggling to finance her 2017 presidential campaign, as POLITICO reported in September.

The financial penalties against Le Pen echo those imposed on her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. The former chief of the National Front, who is also an MEP, was in June accused of misusing resources and ordered to repay €320,000.

Three other National Front MEPs — Sophie Montel, Dominique Bilde and Mylène Troszczynski — have been informed of procedures to recover funds linked to alleged misuse of parliamentary assistants. They have been asked to reimburse around €50,000 each, Ceccaldi said.

The National Front's spokesman did not immediately answer a request for comment.

In total, the amount being requested is around €500,000. POLITICO reported in September that Parliament was looking to recover €535,818.97 euros from Le Pen's parliamentary group, Europe of Nations and Freedom.

OLAF, which is investigating Le Pen but not the other MEPs, declined to share the conclusions of its investigation with Le Pen's legal team, Ceccaldi said.

Financial blow

The request to recover €339,000 comes at a bad time for Le Pen, who is planning to launch her campaign for the French presidency in February.

Her anti-EU, anti-immigration party needs an estimated €12 million to finance a presidential campaign, and has only €4 million. It is actively seeking bank loans to make up the difference.

Mediapart reported earlier this month that the party was in talks over a loan from the United Arab Emirates. However, because the loan came with political strings attached, the party was hesitant and no deal has yet been struck.

The National Front is operating thanks to two loans — one for €9 million and one for €2 million — from a Russian-backed bank in the Czech Republic. The bank has since been dissolved and the Front has not been able to roll over its loans, its campaign treasurer told POLITICO.

To add to the National Front's woes, treasurer Wallerand de Saint-Just is under formal investigation in France over alleged campaign finance fraud. The party is accused of having willingly inflated the price of campaign kits sold to election candidates in order to boost the amount of money it could reclaim from the French state.

Saint-Just denies any wrongdoing in that case.