Former minister François Bayrou, close ally of Emmanuel Macron, as well as ten other people, will be tried from October 16 to November 22 in Paris in the case of the assistants of MEPs of the MoDem.
François Bayrou, 71, current High Commissioner for Planning, will be tried for complicity in the embezzlement of European public funds, between June 2005 and January 2017, as president of the UDF then of the MoDem, AFP learned on Tuesday from source close to the file, confirmed by the prosecution.
On March 9, two investigating judges ordered a trial for the pillar of the current majority and ten other party officials at the time, including former Minister of Justice Michel Mercier and former MEP Jean -Luc Bennahmias, as well as the ex-UDF and its successor the MoDem as legal persons.
They are suspected of having used European funds to hire parliamentary assistants who would have actually worked, at least partially, for the party.
The other defendants must appear mainly for embezzlement of public funds, complicity or concealment of this offense.
For the investigating judges, if these alleged offenses did not cause “personal enrichment of the deputies or party executives”, they “benefited” from the former UDF then from the MoDem by reducing their payroll.
“It will have taken six and a half years for, after investigation and investigation, most of the charges to be nullified”, reacted Tuesday to AFP François Bayrou.
“Nathalie Griesbeck, Robert Rochefort, (Sylvie) Goulard, Maud Gatel and, two years after her death, Marielle de Sarnez are cleared of all suspicion of embezzlement,” he added. “And we will finally be able, at trial, to provide the same justifications for the four or five part-time contracts dating from fifteen years ago (!) which remain under attack”.
“But in the meantime, slander and rumors will have done irreparable damage”, regretted the president of the Modem.
The investigation began in March 2017 after the denunciation of a former elected National Front, Sophie Montel, on fictitious jobs of collaborators of nineteen of her colleagues from all sides.
These revelations had weakened the MoDem, President Macron’s main ally, and led to the resignation of François Bayrou, then Keeper of the Seals, Marielle de Sarnez (European Affairs) and Sylvie Goulard (Armies), a month after their entry into government in 2017.
Similar investigations target the National Rally (RN), whose file is being closed, and La France insoumise (LFI).
edy-mk-alv-bpa/bfa/bow
25/04/2023 17:57:47 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP