Le Pen ordered to repay 300,000 euros to European Parliament

The money was paid between December 2010 and February 2016 when Le Pen was a Member of the European Parliament, according to a press release of the General Court of the EU.

In this file photo taken on January 17, 2017 French Front National (National Front - FN) far-right party's President, European MP and presidential candidate for the 2017 election Marine Le Pen (L) takes part in a plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France. A top EU court on June 19, 2018 ruled that French far-right leader Marine Le Pen must repay nearly 300,000 euros to the European Parliament for funds paid incorrectly to an assistant. Pic/AFP

An EU court on Tuesday ruled that French far-right leader Marine Le Pen must repay the European Parliament 300,000 euros ($346,454) that had been "unduly paid" to her assistant.

The money was paid between December 2010 and February 2016 when Le Pen was a Member of the European Parliament, according to a press release of the General Court of the EU.

The Luxembourg-based Court confirmed the European Parliament's decision to recover the fund "on the ground that she did not prove the effectiveness of that assistant's work", Xinhua news agency reported.

The European Parliament had complained that Le Pen used the fund, which is supposed to pay parliamentary assistants, to pay her own party assistant. In response to the ruling, Le Pen tweeted that she had "provided the tribunal with 655 pieces of documents proving the work of my parliamentary assistant".

"The court refuses to take this into account on the ground that I should have provided them (documents) to the European Parliament, which did not ask me to do so," she tweeted. She vowed to lodge an appeal to the Court of Justice of the EU.