The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into suspicions of abuse of social good around commissions for the rental of a seat during the presidential campaign of Valérie Pécresse, the second investigation relating to this failed electoral campaign.
“Following the report of the National Commission for Campaign Accounts and Political Funding (CNCCFP) relating to Ms. Pécresse’s campaign accounts, a preliminary investigation into the heads of breach of trust and concealment of breach of trust was entrusted to the Regional Directorate of the Judicial Police (DRPJ)”, confirmed the public prosecutor after an article by Mediapart.
“Investigations are ongoing,” he said. “We were not aware” reacted the entourage of Ms. Pécrese.
“The campaign accounts have been validated. The candidate Pécresse is the one who had the least penalties compared to all the other candidates. All the explanations had been provided on the subject in the exchanges with the accounts committee which are public. We will give all the explanations to justice”, it was added.
The investigation concerns the rental conditions of one of Ms. Pécresse’s two campaign seats and the services of the consulting firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL)”, which invoiced at the end of 2021 62,400 euros in fees for research and negotiation of premises, as recalled by the CNCCFP in its decision of December 14, 2022 relating to Ms. Pécresse’s campaign account.
In this decision, published in the Official Journal at the end of January 2023, the CNCCFP considers that “the intervention of the JLL company ultimately appears to have been limited”.
“In view of all of these elements, the expense relating to the research and negotiation services of JLL with a view to signing the contract for the provision of services with the company Comet can only be regarded as very partially justified in its amount and in its consistency”, had considered the CNCCFP, refusing to reimburse part of the expenses incurred.
Asked by AFP, JLL indicated that “its intervention in this case took place in full compliance with the rules and legal, regulatory and ethical obligations”.
The questions are heightened by the fact that these premises belonged to a lessor, Comet Group, which had already signed a contract with the consulting firm Lysios Public Affairs, one of whose partners, Patrick Stefanini, was campaign director for Valérie Pécresse.
Questioned by the commission, Valérie Pécresse had also indicated that “throughout” the presidential campaign, “Patrick Stefanini established a strict partition between his professional activities and his voluntary activities as a campaign manager”.
“It is through the company JLL, mandated for this, that we found our campaign headquarters and absolutely not via Patrick Stefanini”, assured Ms. Pécresse to the CNCCFP.
She had said “to note that as it stands she has no element likely to call into question the content and scope of these statements”, but in view of her limited investigative powers, she had pointed out the facts in court.
At the end of September, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened a first investigation into suspicions of embezzlement of public funds in the context of this same presidential campaign by Valérie Pécresse, after a report this time from Julien Bayou (EELV).
The report of the resigning national secretary of EELV also targeted other offences, including illegal financing of the electoral campaign, abuse of corporate assets and/or illegal taking of interests.
A report qualified as “slanderous denunciation” by the entourage of the candidate LR who spent 14.3 million euros for a single round of voting, but without reaching the 5% mark of votes which allows the reimbursement of the expenses of campaign.
07/28/2023 19:29:21 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
