Favoritism case: Minister Olivier Dussopt will be tried from November 27 to 30

June 2, 2023

The trial was announced, the date is now known: the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt will be tried in Paris from November 27 to 30 for suspicion of favoritism in a public market dating from the end of the 2000s, but “keeps the confidence” of ‘Elisabeth Borne.

For these facts dating from the years 2009-2010, when he was deputy and mayor of Annonay (Ardèche), Mr. Dussopt was summoned to appear for favoritism for the benefit of Saur by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), last week .

The water treatment group is being prosecuted for concealment of favoritism, and Olivier Brousse, former manager of Saur, for complicity in favoritism, said the judicial source, confirming information from BFMTV.

In a statement on Friday following the announcement of the date of the trial, the minister believes that his “oral and written expressions have largely convinced the prosecution”, which “considers that four out of five” of the grievances with which he was accused “do not have no consistency and classified them without follow-up”, underlined the minister.

“No corruption is therefore reproached to me”, he welcomes.

The minister “keeps the trust” of Elisabeth Borne, her entourage told AFP on Friday afternoon. “He will have the opportunity to make his case in court.”

“Olivier Dussopt can stay” in the government in the name of the “principle of the presumption of innocence”, also declared the Minister of Public Service Stanislas Guérini.

For Olivier Dussopt, the PNF “considers that there is only one grievance (…), in this case a formal offense of favoritism in a public contract in 2009, fourteen years ago”.

Mediapart had revealed this next trial at the beginning of February, explaining that a search carried out at the minister’s house by investigators from the Central Office for the Fight against Financial and Tax Offenses had revealed a possible arrangement around this market.

“I have convinced the prosecution of the merits of my position on the first four points, I will convince the court of the merits of my position and of my good faith on this last point remaining to be decided”, continued Mr. Dussopt on Friday, reproducing his February statement.

In a press release at the beginning of February, Saur had indicated that it had “read the article” from the online investigation site.

The group “has been the recipient of a summary note” from the PNF “which envisages, with regard to (the) Saur, an action on the sole basis of events that occurred in 2009”, he added.

“All the other facts investigated by the PNF have been dismissed” and the Saur “considers that this residual action against him, almost fifteen years after the facts, is not justified, and will put forward its arguments before the court who will be seized of it”.

The case began with a preliminary investigation for illegal taking of interest opened against Olivier Dussopt initially about two lithographs by the painter Gérard Garouste which had been offered to him by a company in 2017, when he was deputy and mayor of Annonay.

The investigation was to verify possible facts of corruption and illegal taking of interest.

These two lithographs had been offered by a local manager of Saur, when a contract was about to be concluded between the town of Annonay and this company. The contract, negotiated since 2016, was formally signed six months later, on June 1, 2017.

Olivier Dussopt then explained that he had not declared these lithographs to the ethics officer of the National Assembly (as is required for any gift of more than 150 euros) because he “did not know the value” of the two paintings. He then returned them.

At the time of the Mediapart revelations, in the heart of the mobilization against the pension reform that the minister was carrying, Matignon had quickly indicated that the Minister of Labor kept “all the confidence of the Prime Minister”.

A few days later, Emmanuel Macron had given his “full support” to Mr. Dussopt.

Several figures of the macronie, from the secretary general of the Elysée Alexis Kohler to the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti via the Minister of the Armies Sébastien Lecornu or even François Bayrou, are currently in question judicially.