Three years in prison sentence, required against Claude Guéant for fraud concerning his costs

At the time, the former Minister of the Interior was a candidate to be a deputy in the Hauts-de-Seine.

Le Monde with AFP

The Nanterre prosecution (Hauts-de-Seine) asked, on Wednesday, October 12, three years in prison with probationary suspended for three years, against the former Minister of the Interior, Claude Guéant, tried in court Correctional for scam concerning its campaign costs during the 2012 legislative elections.

For his probationary stay, the prosecution asks him to justify his activities, to compensate the civil party (the judicial agent of the State) and to settle his debts to the public treasury.

At the time, the essential man of the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, now 77, was a candidate to be a deputy in the Hauts-de-Seine. The accusation criticizes him for knowingly reduced his campaign accounts and for having obtained a refund of more than 30,000 euros.

“The probity of future elected officials begins with the probity of candidates who seek the votes,” said prosecutor Nathalie Foy. “Even if the sums at stake is not considerable, this situation should not be trivialized” because it “throws discredit on political life” and “undermines public confidence in the expression of votes”, she affirmed. Especially since in 2012, Mr. Guéant “was a first -plan man, an extremely powerful man”, former secretary general of the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior.

Against him, she also required a fine of 50,000 euros and, for five years, the deprivation of his civil rights, the ban on exercising in the public service and being a corporate agent.

A four -page letter at the heart of the survey

In January 2012, Pierre-Christophe Baguet-UMP mayor of Boulogne-Billancourt and outgoing deputy of Hauts-de-Seine, who has since become the Republicans-had announced to support Claude Guéant to succeed him. In a letter to his citizens, he detailed the reasons for his support to the Minister. This leaflet had been denounced by the dissident candidate, Thierry Solère, who suspected Mr. Baguet for having funded him partly with the money from the municipality. The former right arm of Nicolas Sarkozy had been defeated in the second round by Mr. Solère, now close to Emmanuel Macron.

This “letter of wishes is actually a pretext letter” to “a propaganda document which will be distributed to 60,000 copies”, estimated the prosecutor, which criticizes MM. Wand and Guéant to have sought to have this mail financed by the city of Boulogne-Billancourt. What the two defendants contest.

m. Healing is the subject of other criminal procedures. “I saw them very badly, I have the feeling of great injustices,” he said on Wednesday. The former Minister of the Interior was found guilty, on January 21, of favoritism in the Elysée surveys. He was sentenced to one year in prison including eight months firm. Mr. Guéant is also implicated in the investigation into a possible Libyan funding of Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign in 2007.

/Media reports.