“Tahitigate”: the national financial prosecutor’s office seized after Anne Hidalgo’s trip

2023-11-21 21:30:47

Will there be a legal follow-up to Anne Hidalgo’s trip to the South Pacific, now more commonly known as “Tahitigate”? We already knew that the AC Anticorruption association had filed a complaint against X for embezzlement of public funds. She is clearly not the only one to have taken legal action. According to our information, an elected official from Paris also made a report to the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF).

It is therefore up to this body to process the complaint filed by the anti-corruption association as well as the referral to the elected official. “We are currently analyzing them, without an investigation being opened at this stage,” the PNF is told.

The identity of the elected official behind the referral is not known at this stage, nor his political label. The entourage of Rachida Dati (LR), the boss of the Changer Paris group, who in our columns had called on the justice system to look into the modalities of Anne Hidalgo’s displacement, denies any referral. He nevertheless adds that the hypothesis is “considered”. The other opposition groups interviewed indicate that they have not taken legal action either.

Questions about “the stated purpose” of the trip

AC Anticorruption, founded in 2021 by a former member of the Anticor association, Marcel Claude, questions the “stated purpose” of the trip by the mayor of Paris and asks the question of who paid for this trip. “Either it was official, and therefore had to be taken care of by the City, or it was private and had to be in a personal capacity,” points out the complaint. The association hopes that the Paris prosecutor’s office will open investigations to determine “whether there are mistakes or not”, according to Marcel Claude.

When the AC Anticorruption association announced that it would take legal action in mid-November, the City of Paris took note of the complaint and indicated that it was “at the disposal of the justice system to provide all the elements necessary to reveal the truth. They will make it possible to demonstrate an accusation without the slightest basis. »

To put an end to the controversy surrounding this trip abroad, the mayor of Paris contacted the City’s ethics commission by sending it the invoices for her trip and her agenda. The commission had discharged Anne Hidalgo. According to the commission’s experts, the mayor (PS) of the capital did not break the rules imposed on elected officials during her trip from October 16 to November 5 to New Caledonia and Polynesia.

“The City of Paris did not finance with public funds the personal and private activity of the Mayor of Paris and she did not suffer any harm,” the ethics experts clarified, indicating that they were basing themselves “on the basis of the code of ethics of the City of Paris which provides that the trip must have a direct interest with the City of Paris or the mandate exercised within the community.