Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Notes -
From what I understood, the matter is (at least that's what the officials say it is) that they used funds allocated to pay one kind of the employee (aides working on EU matters) to pay another kind of the employee (aides working on French local matters). While this may or may not be violation of whatever regulations exist in EU (I certainly claim deep ignorance on the subject, and not sure why you can't have an employee working on both matters), calling it "embezzlement" seems going too far - it's not like Le Pen bought cars, family dinners and Gucci bags with public money. Making it a criminal violation disqualifying a leading opposition candidate from participating in the elections stinks to high heaven, to be honest.
Also, I imagine if US had similar regulations - where you can't use federal funds allocated for Congressional aides to hire a member of your own party - that'd disqualify about every single Congressman in existence, as I don't see many Democrats hiring Republican aides or vice versa. And I am sure a lot of congressional aides deal with day-to-day matters that concern partisan affairs - talking to voters, organizing fundraisers, meeting important allies, that kind of stuff. Are there any regulations for that in the US?
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