European prosecutors have searched offices in Brussels and Strasbourg as an investigation into alleged misuse of parliamentary funds by the former Identity and Democracy group raises questions over financial liabilities inherited by Patriots for Europe.

European prosecutors carried out searches at the European Parliament’s offices in Brussels and Strasbourg on Wednesday, 21 October, as part of an investigation into alleged financial irregularities involving the former Identity and Democracy (ID) parliamentary group.

The investigation concerns approximately €4.33 million in European Union funds that were allegedly improperly spent during the 2019–2024 parliamentary term. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) confirmed that searches had taken place in connection with an ongoing inquiry into the use of EU funds by a former parliamentary group.

The premises searched are now occupied by Patriots for Europe, the European Parliament’s third-largest political group, which includes France’s National Rally, Hungary’s Fidesz, Italy’s Lega and Spain’s Vox. Patriots for Europe insists that it has no legal continuity with Identity and Democracy and denies being involved in the investigation.

Investigation into parliamentary expenditure

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office opened its investigation in July 2025 following concerns identified by the European Parliament’s financial administration about expenditure incurred by Identity and Democracy.

The former group, which dissolved following the 2024 European elections, included representatives of France’s National Rally, Italy’s Lega and Germany’s Alternative for Germany.

According to details of the parliamentary financial examination subsequently reported in France, investigators are examining approximately €3.6 million in contracts awarded to external service providers, including businesses with political connections to parties represented within the former group.

The financial examination also identified more than €700,000 in donations to organisations whose activities were allegedly unrelated to the parliamentary group’s official functions.

The authorities are examining whether parliamentary resources were used in accordance with EU financial rules, including restrictions on using public money for national party-political activities.

These are allegations under investigation, not criminal findings. The EPPO has not announced convictions arising from the current inquiry, and the individuals and organisations concerned retain the presumption of innocence.

Earlier investigative measures were conducted in France, Belgium, Spain and Italy in June 2026. Wednesday’s searches mark a further stage in the proceedings.

Can Patriots for Europe inherit the liabilities?

The investigation has opened a separate dispute over whether Patriots for Europe could be required to repay money allegedly misspent by its predecessor.

Identity and Democracy ceased to exist after the 2024 elections. Several parties previously represented in the group subsequently joined Patriots for Europe, a new parliamentary formation that also brought together Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz and Spain’s Vox.

Patriots for Europe maintains that the two groups are legally separate. Its representatives argue that the dissolution of Identity and Democracy ended that group’s institutional existence and that the present parliamentary organisation is not responsible for its predecessor’s financial affairs.

However, the European Parliament’s budgetary authorities have examined whether responsibility for outstanding liabilities can pass to a successor group.

An opinion approved by the Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee in September considered the circumstances in which continuity between parliamentary groups might establish financial responsibility.

Such an assessment may consider whether members, administrative personnel, operational resources and other assets were transferred from one organisation to another.

The outcome could determine whether the current group is exposed to potential repayment demands, irrespective of whether its present members were personally involved in the expenditure under investigation.

No final determination of such liability has been established through Wednesday’s searches.

Political consequences in Strasbourg

The searches come at a time when Patriots for Europe has become a major political force within the European Parliament.

Its member parties have challenged EU policy on immigration, economic regulation and the distribution of powers between Brussels and national governments. National Rally and Fidesz are also influential actors in the domestic politics of France and Hungary respectively.

An investigation involving their parliamentary organisation is therefore likely to attract scrutiny beyond the immediate financial questions.

Nevertheless, the political influence of the group and the criminal investigation must be considered separately. The presence of prosecutors at parliamentary premises does not establish wrongdoing by the current group’s MEPs.

The case also raises broader questions about financial accountability within the Parliament, particularly when a political group dissolves following an election and its members establish a new organisation.

Unlike national political parties, European parliamentary groups receive funding specifically to support their legislative, administrative and political work inside the institution.

Those resources are subject to financial controls intended to prevent their diversion into activities that should be funded by national parties or other organisations.

Further proceedings

The EPPO is responsible for investigating and prosecuting offences affecting the European Union’s financial interests. It operates independently of national governments and EU political institutions.

The European Parliament has confirmed its cooperation with the authorities but has declined to comment on the substance of the continuing investigation.

Prosecutors must now assess the evidence obtained during the searches alongside financial records and material collected during previous investigative measures.

Any decision to bring criminal proceedings would depend on the evidence available and the relevant national and European legal requirements.

Separately, the Parliament will have to establish whether any recoverable funds are owed by the former group and, if so, which organisation is legally responsible for repayment.

For Patriots for Europe, the immediate issue is not only the progress of the criminal inquiry but whether the financial arrangements of a dissolved parliamentary group can create obligations for its successor.

Nationalist leaders are framing unrest as consequence of failed liberal governance and open borders

Europe’s far-right leaders have jumped on the violence that rocked numerous cities last weekend, framing it as the inevitable consequence of failed liberal governance and open-border policies and insisting only they can restore law and order.

Months away from key elections in Spain, France and Italy, authoritarian nationalists are eager to weaponise the wave of street unrest, originating in peaceful protests over the cost of living and deteriorating public services but hijacked by violent rioters.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Abdul Saboor/Reuters

© Photograph: Abdul Saboor/Reuters

© Photograph: Abdul Saboor/Reuters

Nationalist leaders are framing unrest as consequence of failed liberal governance and open borders

Europe’s far-right leaders have jumped on the violence that rocked numerous cities last weekend, framing it as the inevitable consequence of failed liberal governance and open-border policies and insisting only they can restore law and order.

Months away from key elections in Spain, France and Italy, authoritarian nationalists are eager to weaponise the wave of street unrest, originating in peaceful protests over the cost of living and deteriorating public services but hijacked by violent rioters.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Abdul Saboor/Reuters

© Photograph: Abdul Saboor/Reuters

© Photograph: Abdul Saboor/Reuters

Marine Le Pen has set out plans to cut French public spending by €140 billion by 2032, reduce the deficit and impose a constitutional constraint on future borrowing, placing France’s deteriorating public finances at the centre of the campaign for the 2027 presidential election.

Marine Le Pen has presented a five-year fiscal programme under which a National Rally administration would seek €140 billion in net savings by 2032, restore France’s primary budget balance within 18 months and bring the headline deficit back below the European Union’s three per cent threshold by 2030.

The proposals, presented on Tuesday as Le Pen outlined the financial trajectory she would pursue during a presidential term, come as France faces rising borrowing costs and a public debt ratio approaching 120 per cent of GDP.

The scale of the problem was underlined on the same day by France’s Directorate-General of the Treasury. Its latest report on public debt projects the debt ratio at 119.3 per cent of GDP this year before rising to 121.7 per cent in 2027. Debt stood at 115.7 per cent at the end of 2025.

EU Today has already reported that French borrowing costs and concerns over the sustainability of the country’s finances have begun to weigh on the euro and widen the gap between French and German government bond yields.

Le Pen’s programme is therefore aimed not only at French voters but at financial markets increasingly focused on whether Paris can prevent debt from continuing to rise.

According to the proposals outlined on Tuesday, spending reductions would be concentrated heavily in the first three years of a Le Pen presidency. She would also seek to introduce what she calls a constitutional “golden rule”, requiring successive governments to reduce the budget deficit each year.

The measure would be put to a referendum and is intended to make deficit reduction binding beyond an individual government’s annual budget decisions.

Le Pen has also proposed reducing France’s public debt to around 112 per cent of GDP by 2032. That would reverse the trajectory currently expected by the French government, although the National Rally’s assumptions would depend on its ability to deliver the proposed savings and on economic growth during the next presidential term.

Among the most politically significant proposals is a plan to restrict France’s net contribution to the EU budget to €5 billion. The party argues that some European spending should instead be financed through harmonised taxes on products such as tobacco and alcohol.

Le Pen also expects substantial savings from tighter immigration controls and the introduction of the National Rally’s proposed “national preference” rules for access to parts of the welfare system. Her programme estimates that measures connected with immigration could eventually produce savings of as much as €29 billion annually.

Other elements include changes to pension policy, reductions in corporate and energy taxation, measures against VAT fraud, the abolition of more than 120 taxes and a reduction in the number of state agencies.

The programme marks an attempt by Le Pen to make fiscal policy a central part of a campaign that has until now been dominated largely by immigration, security and questions surrounding France’s political fragmentation.

The timing is significant. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s government has itself introduced a difficult fiscal consolidation programme. The 2027 budget presented by the Finance Ministry envisages €54 billion in measures to improve the public finances, including €43 billion contained directly in the state and social-security budgets.

The government expects the deficit to fall from 5.4 per cent of GDP in 2026 to five per cent next year. It forecasts growth of only 0.5 per cent this year before a recovery to one per cent in 2027.

The debt burden is becoming increasingly costly. Interest payments are expected to reach €91.2 billion in 2027, up from €79.2 billion this year, according to the Finance Ministry. By 2030, total public-sector interest costs are projected to reach 3.7 per cent of GDP.

That gives the presidential campaign an economic dimension that is difficult to separate from France’s relationship with Brussels. Paris remains subject to EU fiscal rules requiring a gradual reduction in its deficit, while any attempt to reduce the French contribution to the EU budget would require negotiations with the other member states.

Le Pen enters that debate from a strong electoral position. Recent polling examined by EU Today has placed her ahead in first-round scenarios for 2027, although the final field remains unsettled. EU Today reported in September that Le Pen was polling between 33 and 36 per cent depending on her opponents.

Her latest intervention shifts part of the campaign onto terrain traditionally associated with the centre-right: public spending, debt and the credibility of France’s finances.

With the government attempting to secure parliamentary support for its own austerity measures and French borrowing costs under closer scrutiny, the question of how the country pays for the state is now moving towards the centre of the contest to succeed Emmanuel Macron.

France’s National Rally has secured enough representation to form a parliamentary group in the Senate for the first time, marking a significant expansion of the party’s presence in French political institutions ahead of the 2027 presidential election.

The Rassemblement National (RN) and its allies from Eric Ciotti’s Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR) emerged from Sunday’s Senate elections with at least 14 seats between them. Ten senators are required to establish a group in the upper house.

“For the first time in its history, the Rassemblement National will form, with its UDR allies, a group in the Senate,” party president Jordan Bardella said following the vote. Marine Le Pen called the result a “historic victory” and “major step”.

The breakthrough follows a period in which the RN has been extending its reach beyond national and European elections. Its performance in the March municipal elections strengthened its representation among local elected officials — particularly important in Senate elections because senators are not elected directly by the public.

Before Sunday’s vote, the RN had only three senators: Christopher Szczurek, Joshua Hochart and Aymeric Durox. It therefore lacked the numbers necessary to establish its own parliamentary group.

The result does not mean that the RN has taken control of the Senate. The traditional right and centre remain the dominant forces in the 348-seat chamber, while the Socialists retain a substantial bloc on the left.

The importance of Sunday’s result lies instead in the RN establishing a permanent organised presence inside the upper house.

According to the French Senate’s rules governing political groups, recognition as a parliamentary group provides parties with additional institutional resources and representation in the organisation of Senate business. Groups receive speaking time, participate in the Conference of Presidents and gain greater opportunities to question the government and initiate parliamentary work.

For the RN, this removes one of the remaining institutional barriers separating its national electoral strength from its representation across the French political system.

Why the Senate has been difficult for the RN

The structure of Senate elections helps explain why the breakthrough has taken considerably longer than the party’s rise in presidential, European and National Assembly elections.

The 178 seats contested on 27 September were chosen through indirect elections. Around 95 per cent of the electoral college consists of mayors, deputy mayors and municipal councillors.

Of the seats being renewed, 119 were elected through proportional representation and 59 under a majority system.

The Senate’s 348 members serve six-year terms, with approximately half the chamber renewed every three years. The system has traditionally favoured parties with extensive networks of municipal and regional representatives — an area in which the RN historically lagged behind Les Républicains, the Socialists and the centre.

That began to change as the party expanded its municipal base. The connection between local government and the Senate makes the result particularly significant: it indicates that the RN’s political presence is increasingly being translated into representation among the local officials who constitute the Senate electorate.

The party made gains particularly in southern France, including Bouches-du-Rhône, Var, Vaucluse, Gard and Hérault. Its allies also performed strongly in Alpes-Maritimes.

The geographical pattern follows the RN’s advances during this year’s municipal elections, when the party consolidated existing strongholds and expanded its presence in several southern cities.

The Senate remains controlled by the traditional right

Despite the RN advance, the overall political balance in the Luxembourg Palace has not been overturned.

The conservative Les Républicains entered the election as the Senate’s largest group, with 131 members, according to the Senate’s official group composition. The centrist Union Centriste was the next major component of the Senate majority, while the Socialist, Ecologist and Republican group formed the largest bloc on the left.

The traditional right and centre therefore retain control of the chamber following Sunday’s partial renewal.

Another first came from the opposite end of the political spectrum. La France Insoumise secured representation in the Senate, adding another party to an increasingly fragmented parliamentary landscape.

The simultaneous arrival of organised RN representation and LFI senators does not fundamentally change the Senate’s balance of power, but it broadens the range of parties represented in a chamber historically dominated by the established centre-right and centre-left.

Another step in the RN’s institutional expansion

For Le Pen and Bardella, the Senate result comes as the National Rally seeks to present itself not simply as an opposition movement but as a party capable of operating throughout France’s political institutions.

That effort has become increasingly visible as the 2027 presidential contest approaches.

EU Today has previously examined the party’s attempt to reshape its positions on defence and NATO and the more recent shift in the language used by Le Pen and Bardella towards Russia.

The Senate breakthrough adds a domestic institutional dimension to that process.

It also comes after the RN’s gains in municipal politics, which are directly relevant to its Senate representation. A party that once depended heavily on presidential campaigns and protest votes now has a larger network of mayors, councillors, MPs, MEPs and senators.

Sunday’s vote should not, however, be read as a direct measurement of national voting intentions. Senate elections operate through a restricted electoral college and are heavily influenced by the composition of local government.

The presidential election will be decided by an entirely different electorate under a direct two-round system.

The significance of 27 September is therefore more specific. For the first time, National Rally has accumulated enough representation within France’s locally rooted political system to establish an organised group in the Senate.

That gives the party additional parliamentary resources and a more visible platform in the final months before France enters the 2027 presidential campaign.