A contractor for France’s National Front party who’s close to far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has been handed preliminary charges in an investigation into the financing of political campaigns in 2014 and 2015.
The Paris’ prosecutor’s office confirmed Saturday that Frederic Chatillon was charged with “misuse of company assets” on Wednesday. Chatillon is head of a company contracted by the National Front, the party headed by Le Pen.
These are the first charges brought in the investigation.
It comes days after a top aide to Le Pen, Catherine Griset, was charged with breach of trust in a separate probe into the National Front in which investigators suspect that National Front members used legislative aides for the party’s political activity while they were on the European Parliament payroll.
The party denies wrongdoing.