The question from the president, Nabila Mani-Saada, is as frank as it is direct: “How do you live with all this, Mr. Guéant? » The answer is no less: “I live very badly these multitudes of procedures. (…) I have a very strong feeling of injustice. »
Claude Guéant, ex-minister of the interior and ex-secretary general of the Elysée during the five-year term of Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-2012), former prefect and former director general of the national police, appears again in court. These October 11 and 12, here he is in the court of Nanterre where he responds before the 14e correctional chamber of “campaign fee fraud” during the June 2012 legislative elections – Mr. Guéant was running in the 9e constituency of Hauts-de-Seine.
Graying hair, slim figure, dark suit and matching tie, the man looks tired. Released from prison in February after two months in the Health Department following a conviction in the case of bonuses paid in cash during his time at the Ministry of the Interior (27 February 2011 – 10 May 2012) , Mr. Guéant, also sentenced to one year in prison in January in the case of the Elysée polls, answers the questions of the court with this monotonous tone and this learned word that he likes.
In this procedure opened in April 2014 in Nanterre, Mr. Guéant is suspected of having subtracted from his campaign accounts a printing invoice in order not to exceed the authorized expenditure ceiling of 67,000 euros and to be able to benefit from the reimbursement from the state.
“propaganda material”
The case started at the end of January 2014. The former deputy (UMP, who has since become Les Républicains) for Hauts-de-Seine Thierry Solère – today an adviser to President Macron and under thirteen indictments, in particular for “ tax evasion” and “fictitious employment” – signals fraud to the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office. According to him, Claude Guéant – whom he beat in the second round of the 2012 ballot – had his 2012 campaign financed by the town of Boulogne-Billancourt with the complicity of the mayor and former UMP deputy Pierre-Christophe Baguet. The object of the offense is based on a four-page letter that the mayor sent to the voters of his commune at the beginning of January 2012, in which he announced that he would not seek the renewal of his mandate as deputy in the June elections and that he chose Mr. Guéant to succeed him. Against Mr. Solère, who also targeted this constituency.
On the last of the four pages, Mr. Baguet publishes Mr. Guéant’s declaration of candidacy. For Mr. Solère, the town hall of Boulogne-Billancourt paid for this document, which was billed at 12,854 euros and distributed in 49,000 copies. In fact, the city was never seized for the payment of this letter, which Mr. Baguet assures that it consisted of a personal approach. It is the national headquarters of the UMP which honored up to 5,300 euros part of the invoice, the remaining 7,500 euros having never been settled.
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