Adrien Desport posing with Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the National Front | Maghomer10/Wikimedia Commons Ex-National Front official jailed for burning cars A former official in Marine Le Pen’s party is in jail after being accused of torching cars to create a false sense of danger in his town.

He was burning with ambition.

A 25-year-old former member of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front party was jailed late on Wednesday after being accused of setting fire to 13 cars in his town to create fear about crime.

The morning after the official, Adrien Desport, and a group of friends allegedly set fire to the cars, he took to Twitter and his personal web site to denounce what he said was evidence of rising lawlessness in the northeast Paris suburb, Mitry-Mory, which has 18,828 inhabitants and a crime rate slightly above the national average.

A prosecutor told the AFP news agency that Desport was the “most involved” of his group in the false-flag operation and had been the most active in trying to draw attention to the car burnings — a well-known symptom of urban decay in France that is usually associated with housing projects in tough suburbs.

Le Monde reported that Desports was found out only when another FN official told on him and four alleged accomplices to the party, which has suspended him pending a disciplinary hearing.

Now six young men aged 19-25 are to be tried on July 15 on a series of charges ranging from vandalism to use of illegal substances to conspiracy to commit a criminal act and false denunciation of imaginary criminal acts. They have also been accused of tagging the car and house door of another member of their own party.

While the false car burnings are a first for the National Front, they fit into a pattern of inappropriate behavior on the part of low-ranking officials. Ahead of France’s 2014 town hall elections, Le Pen expelled several candidates from the party after they were exposed as having posted overtly racist material on social media web sites, or belonging to banned groups.

Le Pen expelled FN candidates for the 2014 elections after they posted overtly racist material on social media web sites.

The National Front, which is due to vote Friday on whether to strip founder Jean-Marie Le Pen of his status as “honorary president” after a public blow-out with his daughter, has suffered more generally from a lack of competency among its officials.

A National Front official who asked not to be named told POLITICO in May that Marine Le Pen would enforce a more rigorous screening process for National Front candidates who want to run on the party’s ticket in regional elections coming up in December.

“The drunks, the deadbeats and the people who get to run just because they’ve showed up to meetings for 25 years — all that’s finished,” the official said.