Father of Le Pen ‘sent his £7,000 wine bill to EU’

THE father of French far-Right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen allegedly spent more than £7,000 on fine wines to celebrate what he hoped would be her election success – then sent the bill to the EU.

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

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.

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

The total bill including delivery was 8,500 euros (£7,200) and it was then said to have been sent by Mr Le Pen to the European Parliament, where he remains an MEP.

The paperwork was published yesterday by the Paris investigative website Mediapart, which has spent many months exposing corruption at the heart of the Le Pen family party, the National Front.

The website said Mr Le Pen asked the wine merchant, Lavinia, to apply European Parliament labels to the bottles, but it is not clear whether the firm did this. The European Parliament is to investigate. Neither Mr Le Pen nor the National Front has commented.

Mr Le Pen, a convicted racist and anti- Semite, is the founder and honorary president of the party and is backing Marine to become French president on Sunday.

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.

Miss Le Pen, 48, came second in the first round of voting on April 23, but she is widely expected to lose to Emmanuel Macron, the 39-yearold independent centrist candidate in the run-off on Sunday. Yesterday, on the last day of campaigning, four polls showed Mr Macron, who founded his political movement En Marche! (Onward!) a year ago, on track to win 62 per cent of the votes, with Miss Le Pen on 38 per cent.

‘Wanted European Parliament labels’