A corruption watchdog says it is seeking a probe into allegations France's far-right presidential candidate-in-waiting Jordan Bardella once held a fake assistant job in European parliament, claims his party denies.
A court last year found the anti-immigration Rassemblement National (RN) party's former leader Marine Le Pen and two dozen others -- including parliamentary assistants -- guilty of operating a system from 2004 to 2016 to use European parliament funds to employ RN staff in France.
An appeal court is next week to decide whether to uphold a five-year electoral ban for Le Pen over the fake job scandal, in a landmark decision to determine whether she or her protege Bardella will run for president next year.
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Bardella, who became RN party leader in 2022 and is a member of the European parliament, is not a defendant in that case.
