2024-02-01 16:05:28
“I am happy to see my honor once again cleansed.” The investigation into misappropriation of public funds and illegal financing of Valérie Pécresse’s presidential campaign in 2022 was closed on Monday, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced on Thursday February 1, confirming information from Franceinfo.
The former Les Républicains candidate and current president of the Ile-de-France regional council also denounced a “systematic, cynical and undignified harassment” elected officials from the environmentalist party, including MP Julien Bayou who had issued this report during his presidential campaign.
Addressed in April 2022 to the Paris prosecutor’s office and of which Agence France-Presse was aware, the report targeted the offenses of embezzlement of public funds, illegal financing of an electoral campaign, illegal financing of a political party, misuse of corporate assets and/or illegal taking of interests.
Read the decryption (2022): Article reserved for our subscribers An investigation opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office into the financing of Valérie Pécresse’s presidential campaign
An “insufficiently characterized offense”
Julien Bayou relied in particular on the resignation of regional councilor Babette de Rozières from the campaign team and all commissions due to “disagreements that she expressed with regard to the presidential campaign of Valérie Pécresse”. It was, among other things, a question of “the contribution during her working time of an agent, the chief of staff of the regional president, to the development of the right-wing presidential campaign program”.
The investigation, entrusted to the Brigade for the Repression of Economic Delinquency, was closed on Monday January 29 for “insufficiently characterized offense”according to the prosecution. “The report did not bring to our attention factual elements, but comments made by other people raising fears that there was a potential offense”, explained the public prosecutor. During her hearing, Babette de Rozières “did not have any factual element to bring to our knowledge”continued the prosecution.
Another investigation remains ongoing. It was opened for breach of trust and concealment and concerns in particular the rental conditions of one of the two presidential campaign headquarters after a report from the National Commission for Campaign Accounts and Political Financing.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Why Valérie Pécresse is targeted by a second investigation into her presidential campaign
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