The ERE association of the people was indicted on 3 February for aggravated prosecutions against those pronounced in the spring of 2021, as part of the investigation into the Campaign Accounts of the LFI candidate, open in 2018.
Le Monde with AFP
In the middle of the presidential campaign, four years after the opening of the investigation concerning the campaign accounts of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the association the ERE of the people, which was a candidate’s provider during his 2017 campaign, was indicted on 3 February 2022 for the counts of false, use of false, scam and “aggravated scam attempt”, learned [Nute] Wednesday, March 23rd. This confirms information given the day before by Mediapart , also confirmed at the France-Presse agency (AFP) .
At first, in March 2021, Parisian investigating judges had indicted the association only for “illicit labor loan” and had granted the more favorable status of witness attended For the main offenses of the survey, focusing on suspicions of scam and surfactur. But after a series of new hearings and investigative acts, they decided to aggravate the expenses weighing on the association.
Investigation Open since 2018
Education judges have been addressing this file since November 2018. The non-profit association founded in 2015 by Mr. Mélenchon’s faithful to ensure the logistics of the meetings of the candidate France Insouchaise (LFI), had Billed 440 027 euros to the candidate for rentals of halls or computer equipment and the intellectual benefits of his four employees, including MPs Bastien Lachaud, already indicted, and Mathilde Panot, elected in 2017 in the hemicycle.
The National Campaign Accounts and Political Funding Commission had noted a difference of 152,688 euros between wages paid to MPs and the amounts invoiced for their benefits to the agent. According to Mediapart, this allowed the association to identify a margin of 66% and 59% for the two deputies cited. In charge of validating the repayment of the spending of candidates with public money, the Commission then refused to repay this margin carried out by the ERA of the people and reported the facts to justice.
Contact by AFP, no Bernard Pineroll, President of the ERA of the People, Nor Mathieu Croizet, his lawyer, were available to react. Candidate for the presidential election of 2022, Jean-Luc Mélenchon contests any offense as well in this investigation and in the judicial information, still ongoing, about the suspicion of fictitious employment of parliamentary assistants by the European Parliament.