2023-11-30 04:58:46
He is suspected of favoritism in the award of a public contract, while he was mayor of Annonay (Ardèche), in 2009. The national financial prosecutor’s office requested on Wednesday ten months of suspended imprisonment and 15,000 euros in compensation. fine against the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt.
The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) also requested an eight-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 15,000 euros against Olivier Brousse, former general director of Saur, prosecuted for complicity in favoritism. Against this drinking water supply and wastewater treatment company, prosecuted for concealment of favoritism, the PNF also demanded a fine of one million euros and a suspended exclusion from public contracts, for a period of three years.
Criticizing serious “failures” in the “duty to set an example” by elected officials in the hope of “political gain”, and facts which contribute to “degrading confidence in institutions, weakening the republican pact”, the prosecution n On the other hand, he did not require a penalty of ineligibility against Olivier Dussopt, “in view of the age of the facts”.
“Tie Break”
The three defendants have been appearing since Monday before the Paris criminal court, prosecuted for a “break in equality between the candidates” during the award of the drinking water operation contract for the town of Annonay, in December 2009. “Saur simply assisted the mayor to help him shape future public contracts”, while Olivier Dussopt engaged in “a real establishment of tailor-made criteria” for the benefit of this company, estimated Jean-Baptiste Bougerol at the start of the two-voice indictment of the PNF.
The prosecution is based on two documents, discovered during a search in August 2020 at the Ardèche home of Olivier Dussopt, as part of the preliminary investigation opened in May 2020 after an article from Mediapart. The first, the report of a meeting between Olivier Dussopt and Olivier Brousse at the end of July 2009, three months before the publication of the call for tenders for the contract concerned. The second, an email sent shortly after by the PS deputy mayor to municipal services, requesting the modification of several clauses in the specifications of the call for tenders, and the reduction of the importance given to the price criterion in the evaluation of candidates’ offers.
While the defense maintains that the facts are prescribed, prosecutors objected that they were “concealed” until the PNF became aware of them, with the search. “This boy is crystal, he is incapable of hiding anything,” retorted Georges Holleaux, lawyer for Olivier Dussopt, portraying a mayor barely 30 years old “who acted for the good of his commune” . The seized file was “not hidden behind the toilet bowl” but “on a shelf in the library”, “he could have cleaned it” but “has nothing to reproach himself for”, he pleaded .
Basically, the PNF considers that the meeting at the end of July did give rise to the communication of “privileged information” on the market, that “Olivier Dussopt left with a shopping list on the requirements” of Saur, then “set the municipal services in motion to concretely translate” these requests into the specifications. An interpretation contested by the defense, which only speaks of “anticipated information” and considers that “the candidates are put back on equal ground” when the call for tenders is published.
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