2023-11-15 01:13:39
The legal storm that is falling on the centrist leader is not abating. The prosecution requested on Tuesday in Paris a 30-month suspended prison sentence, a 70,000 euro fine and three years of suspended ineligibility against the three-time presidential candidate François Bayrou, for complicity in the embezzlement of public funds in the affair of assistants to UDF and MoDem MEPs.
Against ten other centrist executives and elected officials, the prosecution demanded sentences ranging from 8 to 20 months in prison and a fine of 10,000 to 30,000 euros, with penalties of ineligibility again with reprieve. Fines of 300,000 euros, including 100,000 euros, and 500,000 euros, including 200,000 euros, were requested for the UDF and the MoDem respectively.
The “decision maker” of the “fraudulent” system
The centrist leader has been appearing since Monday October 16 before the Paris criminal court for complicity in embezzlement of public funds. The investigating judges considered that he appeared to be “the decision-maker and person responsible for the establishment and operation” of a system described as “fraudulent”. Ten other people, including a majority of former MEPs, are suspected of having used European funds to pay parliamentary assistants who in reality worked for centrist organizations, in order to relieve their finances.
The investigations began after the denunciation made by a former National Front MEP, quickly supported by the testimonies of former assistants assuring that they had actually worked in the service of the organization, and not of the parliamentarian with whom they were supposed to collaborate. One of them even explained that he did not know “his” MP. The defense considers that the versions of these witnesses, at odds with the party, are subject to caution.
According to the investigating judges, these initial suspicions were confirmed by the investigations. During a search, the police found emails or tables suggesting that party executives had an overview of the budget allocated by Parliament for MEPs and that this windfall was then used to offer a remuneration, or additional remuneration, to permanent staff performing other tasks.
Throughout the investigation, François Bayrou constantly protested his innocence, refuting any interference from the party in the choice and management of assistants, denigrating the witnesses against him, defending the contribution of the assistants presented as a “task force” serving the party’s pro-European policy, or by minimizing the amount of sums supposed to have been embezzled.
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