Louis Aliot, mayor of Perpignan, in the courtroom in Paris on January 21, 2026. SERGIO AQUINDO FOR LE MONDE
Louis Aliot, the far-right Rassemblement National's (RN) vice president, is a busy man. He had little time to reflect since his hearing 15 months ago before the criminal court that convicted him on March 31, 2025, of misappropriating public funds and sentenced him to 18 months in prison, 12 of which were suspended, and a three-year ban on holding elected office, without immediate enforcement. Since his appeal, he has remained the mayor of the southern city of Perpignan, the only French city with a population over 100,000 won by the RN in the 2020 municipal elections. Buoyed by favorable polling, he does not doubt he will be re-elected in March.
Legally, things look less promising. Shortly after being elected as a member of the European Parliament, Aliot hired a parliamentary assistant, Laurent Salles, from July 1, 2014, to February 28, 2015. Salles, a far-right activist for 30 years, was then unemployed. He had been recommended as a serious candidate by Nicolas Bay, the party's former secretary general. Aliot did not see the need for a job interview. Salles, who barely knew him, having only seen him in passing, learned he had been hired as a parliamentary assistant only when he received his contract by email. "We talked about it in my office," Aliot argued weakly before the Paris Court of Appeals on Thursday, January 22. "But things were in great disarray; it was quite complicated to keep up with everything." He claimed to have assigned Salles to sort his mail at the party's headquarters.
