2024-01-19 04:17:49
MAM, as Michèle Alliot-Marie is nicknamed, will be judged in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) in a case of illegal taking of interests in the town hall of Saint-Jean-de-Luz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), indicated the prosecutor’s office on Thursday, confirming information from Point. An order for referral to the criminal court was made last week, said the public prosecutor, who had requested a trial in October. A hearing will be held on March 7 to set a date for this trial.
The story that is not from yesterday. In this case, the former Minister of Defense, Interior, Justice and Foreign Affairs under Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy is targeted for her alleged role in the payment of subsidies to an association chaired by her father when she was deputy mayor of Saint-Jean-de-Luz more than a decade ago. A judicial investigation was opened in 2013 in Nanterre, then revealed by Le Parisien.
A well-endowed festival
The investigation highlighted subsidies from the town hall of Saint-Jean-de-Luz to an association which organized the city’s Young Directors Festival and was directed by Bernard Marie, who died in 2015. According to information collected during the investigation, between January 2010 and October 2012, this association would have recorded in its bank account credit flows exceeding 260,000 euros coming, in particular, from the Saint-Jean-de-Luz Tourist Office, itself subsidized by the municipality. Each year, the association received 25,000 euros from the town hall.
“A serious confusion”, according to his lawyers
However, between 2009 and 2013, the date of the last edition of the directors’ festival, Michèle Alliot-Marie, now aged 77, was deputy mayor, in addition to her duties as Keeper of the Seals and then Minister of Foreign Affairs.
“Madame Michèle Alliot-Marie has not committed an offense,” her lawyers, Messrs Rémi Lorrain and Christophe Ingrain, responded to AFP. “The referral, which concerns facts dating back more than 12 years, is based on serious confusion in the understanding of this file. We will have no difficulty in demonstrating the innocence of Michèle Alliot-Marie,” added her counsel.
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