2023-04-19 13:39:22
The parliamentary commission of inquiry into foreign interference will soon hear former Prime Minister François Fillon, according to its president Jean-Philippe Tanguy who told POLITICO. The hearing should take place in early May, according to two other parliamentary sources interviewed by the political information site. BFM TV has had confirmation.
The former presidential candidate will be questioned about his retraining in the private sector, and specifically about the positions he held on the boards of directors of two Russian companies.
In 2021, François Fillon was appointed administrator of Zarubezhneft, a company specializing in hydrocarbons owned by the Russian state, and of Sibur, a petrochemical juggernaut owned by relatives of Vladimir Putin. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia had forced him to resign from these two mandates, with regret. “I do it with sadness because I met men and women of great value there”, declared François Fillon when resigning from his functions, specifying that in terms of “foreign policy, we have to deal with the realities . Depending on the interests of France and those of the country’s security.
“Courage of Truth”
Before deciding to resign, the former cantor of the “courage of truth” – his campaign slogan before being hit by the case of the fictitious job of his wife Penelope – had opened a controversy by claiming to have ” warned “for ten years against the refusal of Westerners to take into account Russian demands on the expansion of NATO”.
Eight days earlier, when the tension was at its height, the Russian government had published a photo of François Fillon, in Moscow, meeting the vice-president of the government Alexander Novak. The cliché was then used to reproach Fillon for his links with Russia.
Endowed with extensive powers, the commission of inquiry created and chaired by the National Rally seeks to establish whether “there are foreign networks of influence which corrupt elected officials, public officials, directors of strategic companies or media relays with the aim disseminating propaganda or obtaining decisions contrary to the national interest”.
In recent weeks, she has auditioned several personalities reputed to be close to Russia, such as Maurice Leroy, former Minister for the City of François Fillon who has worked in Moscow since his retirement from political life, and MEP Thierry Mariani, but also journalist Marc -Olivier Fogiel and the Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders Christophe Deloire.
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