A French Socialist MEP has the right to claim up to €90,000 ($125,000) because she was put into the European Parliament six days before it closes for the next elections. Cllr Christine Revault D’Allonnes Bonnefoy is allowed to claim three month’s worth of expenses and salary, despite doing less than one full week of work.
The town councillor for Villejuif took office on 9th April 2014 and will therefore get €304 a day in expenses for six days of Parliamentary work, a total of €1,824. In addition she will be paid a salary of €7,957 per month up until 30th June, when the full term of the Parliament expires. Bringing her total payment to €25,695.
Once you add in her office allowances, the total comes to a whopping €89,322 for just six days, the equivalent of £4.5m a year. Assuming she works a standard eight hour day, this means she can get up to €1,860 an hour, making it perhaps the most lucrative political jobs in the Western world.
D’Allonnes-Bonnefoy took office because Harlem Désir resigned as an MEP to take up a post as France’s Europe Minister. She was sixth on the list of candidates for her region but the three candidates ahead of her refused to take the seat.
She remains low on the list of candidates for the election in May and is therefore highly unlikely to retain the seat.
John O’Connell of the TaxPayers’ Alliance told Breitbart London: “It would be a scandal if an MEP were able to claim three months remuneration for six days work. Membership of the EU costs millions of pounds every single day, and taxpayers are fed up of so much of that going towards absurd pay and expenses systems that allow politicians to feather their nests.”
Rory Broomfield from the Freedom Association was similarly unimpressed. He told Breitbart London, “This is yet another example that shows how the EU system of expenses and allowances should be reformed.
“This ‘money for nothing’ system promotes ‘gravy train politics’ and shows how detached some politicians can become from reality. It is a system that has been shown to be chronically flawed and seemingly beyond reform. It proves us with another example of why we’d be Better Off Out.”
Follow Andre Walker on Twitter: @AndreJPWalker
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