MARINE Le Pen, the French far-right leader, has met with former White House strategist Steve Bannon and signalled her interest in his project to help European populist parties.

Louis Aliot, a vice president of Le Pen’s National Rally party who is also her companion, said Friday on BFMTV station that she met with Mr Bannon a day earlier in Paris.

According to Mr Aliot, Bannon wants to provide “technical assistance” for nationalist parties ahead of next year’s European elections but that he “doesn’t want to play a (political) role.” Two years on from helping to mastermind Donald Trump’s successful campaign to become US president, Mr Bannon has his sights set on Europe and he is planning a foundation, called The Movement, to boost far-right parties.

Mr Bannon has been making the rounds in Europe of late as part of his push for a transnational, anti-European Union movement.

Ms Le Pen was in Rome to join Mr Salvini at a union conference where they showed a united front before the European Parliament election in May. Last month, Mr Bannon appeared at a rally in Rome organised by a small far-right Italian opposition party, Brothers of Italy, where he heaped praise on Italy’s populist, 5-Star-League government, and he was in Rome for the March 4 election that brought them to power.

In March, Bannon spoke at Le Pen’s National Front party congress, which had been aimed at remaking the far-right party’s image after it suffered a crushing defeat to the pro-globalisation forces that brought Emmanuel Macron to the French presidency.

“We’re not going to say ‘no’,” Mr Aliot said with regard to getting help.

Ms Le Pen’s apparent renewed interest in working with Bannon stands in marked contrast to comments earlier this week when she said that only European voices should “shape the political forces … to save Europe.”

Meanwhile, Ms Le Pen’s legal situation grew murkier on Friday as investigative judges upped preliminary charges against her over the alleged misuse of European Union funds by her and her party.

She is a suspect in a case over payments to parliamentary assistants in the EU parliament who reportedly worked elsewhere, including at her party headquarters. Ms Le Pen stepped down from her post as a European parliamentary deputy to become a French politician after last year’s legislative elections, but remains shadowed by the case in which some 15 people have been placed under investigation, including Mr Aliot.

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On Friday, a judicial official said Le Pen was now being charged with misappropriation of public funds rather than breach of trust.

The official wasn’t authorised to speak publicly and asked for anonymity. Ms Le Pen has other legal issues to contend with, one notable one with regard to her posting of photos on Twitter in December 2015 that showed executions by IS extremists.

She was handed preliminary charges in March for distribution of violent images. Ms Le Pen posted the images after the November 2015 Paris attacks by IS that killed 130 people.

Ms Le Pen said on Friday that an investigation has also been opened over her September Twitter post of a court document ordering she submit to a psychiatric exam in the case.

“This judicial harassment is becoming terrifying!” she tweeted on Friday.