The prosecution also asked that the Moral Party, the MoDem and UDF parties, for complicity in the embezzlement of public funds and concealment. /p>
The Paris prosecutor’s office requested a trial for thirteen people on Monday, including the president of Modem François Bayrou, suspected of embezzlement of public funds or complicity in the case of the irregular employment of Eurotéputés, Announced, Tuesday, January 31, the prosecution, confirming information from Echos .
The prosecution also asked that the Moral Party and UDF parties be judged, as a complicity in the embezzlement of public funds and concealment. The final decision on the holding of a trial returns to the investigating judge seized of the file.
Solicited by the France-Presse agency, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed that it also required a trial before the criminal court for the former Keeper of the Seals, Michel Mercier, and the former MEPs Sylvie Goulard, Nathalie Griesbeck and Jean- Luc Bennahmias.
The survey aims to organize the work of people hired with European credits as parliamentary assistants for MEPs, but who could have held a job, full or partial, at the UDF then at MoDem .
prejudice valued at 1.4 million euros
Investigations essentially aim for European legislature 2009-2014 but also, to a lesser extent, the previous and posterior legislatures. The damage of the European Parliament is estimated at 1.4 million euros.
According to a report rendered in April 2021 by investigators from the Central Office to Combat Corruption and financial and fiscal offenses, the centrist party has implemented an “old and more or less informal system” of diversion of European funds to wage its employees.
“To bring his party to life and ensure its functioning at a lower cost, François Bayrou and Marielle de Sarnez, supported by the 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 opened an investigation in March 2017 after the denunciation of a former elected representative of the National Front, Sophie Montel, on fictitious jobs of collaborators of 19 of her colleagues from all stripes, including Marielle de Sarnez – Died in January 2021 – Right arm of the president of the François Bayrou party.
Three months later, a former collaborator of the Modem, Matthieu Lamarre, said that he was partially remunerated in 2011 as assistant to ex-deputy Jean-Luc Bennahmias while working for the centrist party in Paris.
“Politics” each week, “MO12345LEMONDE” Analysis for you the challenges of political news register
These revelations had weakened the modem , Principal ally of President Emmanuel Macron, and led to the resignation of François Bayrou, then Keeper of the Seals, Marielle de Sarnez (European Affairs) and Sylvie Goulard (armies), one month after their entry into government in 2017.
The modem has always ensured that it has “respected all the rules”.