The father of French far-Right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen spent more than £7,000 on fine wines – and sent the bill to the European taxpayer.

Jean-Marie Le Pen's extraordinary bill from an upmarket wine merchant included dozens of bottles of Bollinger, Dom Perignon and Laurent Perrier champagne.

It is claimed that the 88-year-old firebrand wanted specially made 'European Parliament' labels stuck on all of them so that they could be passed off as a legitimate expense.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of French presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen, spent £7,000 on fine wines and champagne before charging it to his Brussels expense account, documents show

In total Mr Le Pen had 100 bottles delivered to his address in Paris with a special request to put European Parliament labels on them so they could be claimed on expenses

Bordeaux grand crus such as Pomerol Chateau Vieux Ferrand were among the 100 bottles delivered in December to Montretout, the Le Pen family mansion in the upmarket Paris suburb of St-Cloud.

The total bill including delivery was for 8500 euros (£7200) and it was immediately sent by Mr Le Pen to the European Parliament, where Mr Le Pen remains an MEP.

All the paperwork is today published by leading Paris investigative news site Mediapart, which has spent many months exposing corruption at the heart of the Le Pen family party, the National Front.

Mr Le Pen, a convicted racist and anti-Semite, is the founder and current honorary president of the party and is backing Marine, 48, to become President of France in Sunday's election.

She has publicly claimed there is a rift between father and daughter, but many suspect this has been staged to make her more attractive to moderate voters.

Mediapart writes that Mr Le Pen has used 'public funds theoretically made available to parliamentarians to cover secretarial and related expenses' to buy the wine.

All of it came from Lavinia, an upmarket wine merchants in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, and was sent on 28th December 2016 – well in time for the start of the current election campaign.

Sources close to the case suggest that much of the wine will have been consumed celebrating the first-round election victory of his daughter, Marine

Le Pen is due to face off against Emmanuel Macron in the second round of voting on Sunday in a race that she is widely expected to lose

Mr Le Pen asked the merchant to apply special 'European Parliament' labels to the bottles, but it is not clear whether the Lavinia actually did this.

Other sources close to the case – which will now be the subject of an EU parliament investigation – said Mr Le Pen was in 'party mood' at the time.

The sources said he is likely to have already drunk a lot of the wine to celebrate his youngest daughter getting through the first round of the election last Sunday week.

She is now in the second head-to-head with independent candidate Emmanuel Macron, who is widely expected to win, according to all polls.

Neither Mr Le Pen nor her father's party has so far commented on the scandal involving party finances.

French prosecutors have launched an investigation into another alleged scam in which Ms Le Pen is said to have given party members fake jobs in the European Parliament.

The members were said to have been paid the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of pounds in taxpayers' money for doing nothing in Brussels whatsoever.

The controversial Mr Le Pen himself reached the second round of the French presidential election in 2002, but was defeated by a landslide vote for the conservative candidate, Jacques Chirac.

Marine Le Pen bundled to safety on campaign trail

Marine Le Pen was bundled out of the back door of a cathedral by bodyguards to avoid a jeering crowd of protesters in Reims.

The far-right candidate was rushed to a waiting car after hundreds of supporters of her rival Emmanuel Macron gathered at the entrance.

She later took to Twitter to accuse the crowd of 'violence', having 'no dignity' and disrespecting a 'symbolic and sacred place'.

Marine Le Pen is surrounded by her bodyguards after leaving the cathedral in Reims via a back door as supporters of Emmanuel Macron gathered outside

Television images showed her leaving the cathedral via an unmarked door, putting her arms over her head to protect herself and diving into a black car as a small crowd gathered around, shouting epithets. The car quickly sped away.

Four new polls on Friday showed Macron on track to win 62 per cent of the votes in the second round compared to 38 per cent for Le Pen, his best score since nine other candidates were eliminated in the first round on April 23.

Le Pen's hostile reception at the cathedral came hours after protesters were able to unfurl a giant campaign banner under the Eiffel Tower - despite heightened terror fears in Paris.

Although security has been boosted around French tourism sites, Greenpeace activists strung up a banner saying 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity' and '#resist' in protest at the programme of Marine Le Pen.

Crowds of young people gathered in front of the main entrance during the visit of Marine Le Pen at the Cathedral in Reims today