Political figure from Beaujolais, former MP Bernard Perrut (Les Républicains, LR), was sentenced on Monday May 13 in Paris to a one-year suspended prison sentence. The court found him guilty of embezzlement of public funds through misuse of his compensation representing mandate expenses (IRFM), for an amount of approximately 87,500 euros, and of breaches of his reporting obligations vis-à-vis the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP), concerning in particular the value of its assets and life insurance contracts.
The Paris criminal court also sentenced him to a fine of 60,000 euros, as well as a five-year ineligibility sentence. However, he made it known that Mr. Perrut, who is still LR regional advisor in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, was not obliged to leave his current mandate.
During the trial in February, the representative of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) requested four months of suspended imprisonment, a fine of 80,000 euros and three years of ineligibility against the 67-year-old elected official.
Actions of a “voluntary nature”
While Mr. Perrut had claimed during the hearing to be “a little bit messy” and to have acted for “ease” to manage his expenses, the court considered that these failings were of a “voluntary nature”.
Between 2018 and 2019, the HATVP transmitted to the PNF around fifteen reports relating to the use by several parliamentarians, from all sides, of their IRFM. In the amount of 5,840 euros gross per month, this “aimed to cover the various expenses linked to the exercise of their mandate [which were not] directly covered or reimbursed by the Assembly”.
Among these reports is the one concerning Bernard Perrut, who was deputy for the 9th district of Rhône from 1997 to 2022 and mayor of Villefranche-sur-Saône between 2008 and 2017. The acts for which he was convicted were committed between March 2015 and June 2017, before, therefore, the replacement of the IRFM by the advance of mandate fees (AFM), in January 2018.