The Paris prosecutor's office on Monday requested a trial for thirteen people, including the president of the MoDem François Bayrou, suspected of embezzlement of public funds or complicity in the case of the irregular employment of MEPs' assistants, the prosecution said on Tuesday. , confirming information from Les Echos.
The prosecution also asked that the MoDem and UDF parties be tried, as a legal person, for complicity in the embezzlement of public funds and concealment. The final decision on the holding of a trial rests with the investigating judge hearing the case.
Asked by AFP, the Paris prosecutor's office confirmed that it had also requested a trial before the criminal court for the former Minister of Justice Michel Mercier and the former MEPs Sylvie Goulard, Nathalie Griesbeck and Jean-Luc Bennahmias.
The investigation is aimed at the organization of the work of people hired with European credits as parliamentary assistants for MEPs, but who could have held a job, full or part time, at the UDF then at the MoDem.
The investigations mainly target the 2009-2014 European legislature but also, to a lesser extent, the previous and subsequent legislatures.
The damage to the European Parliament is assessed at 1.4 million euros.
According to a report issued in April 2021 by the police of the Anti-Corruption Office (Oclciff), the centrist party has set up an "old and more or less informal system" of embezzlement of European funds to pay its employees.
"To keep his party alive and ensure its operation at a lower cost, François Bayrou and Marielle de Sarnez, supported by party executives, put at the service of the UDF, then the MoDem, parliamentary assistants paid by the European Parliament" , summarize the investigators.
The Paris prosecutor's office had opened an investigation in March 2017 after the denunciation of a former elected representative of the National Front, Sophie Montel, on the fictitious jobs of collaborators of 19 of her colleagues from all sides, including Marielle de Sarnez - who died in January 2021 - Right arm of party president François Bayrou.
Three months later, a former MoDem collaborator, Matthieu Lamarre, claimed to have been partly paid in 2011 as an assistant to former MEP Jean-Luc Bennahmias while working for the centrist party in Paris.
These revelations had weakened the MoDem, President Emmanuel 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.
The MoDem has always assured to have "respected all the rules".
01/31/2023 21:05:13 - Paris (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
