French politician Marine Le Pen has hit back against charges of illegal party funding by European Parliament deputies from her far-right National Rally (RN) party. Le Pen and more than 20 other senior party figures are accused of hiring assistants who worked on party affairs rather than for the European Parliament which paid them. She told a court in Paris on Monday that parliamentary assistants paid for by the Brussels assembly were naturally involved in politics – because that was what drew them to the job in the first place.Read more