The Nanterre public prosecutor’s office informed Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Monday, October 10, that a judicial investigation was opened against X for suspicion of embezzlement of public funds and illicit campaign financing, targeting the executive. socialist of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region chaired by Alain Rousset, confirming information from the regional daily South West.
The Nanterre prosecutor’s office, which has been carrying out the investigations since the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office divested itself, entrusted this investigation on July 21 to an investigating judge. Contacted by AFP, Mr. Rousset’s office declined to comment.
A complaint filed in March 2021 by a former employee
The judicial investigation against X relates to various counts of offence, including the embezzlement of public funds by a person holding public authority or a person entrusted with a public service mission and the illicit financing of an electoral campaign, specified Monday the wooden floor.
The opening of this investigation follows the filing of a complaint in March 2021 by David Angevin, who was employed as an associate of Mr. Rousset from 2015 to 2018, as a “pen”. He accuses the leading socialist team of having “charged with public money” the 2015 regional election campaign, in order to be renewed, using the financial and human resources of the local authority.
Journalist and writer, Mr. Angevin had directed the University of the future, a think tank in the New Aquitaine region on the digital revolution, from which he was dismissed in January 2020 after disagreements, according to him, with political leaders from the regional executive.
When filing this complaint, Mr. Rousset, who led the Aquitaine region from 1998 to 2015 and has been at the head of the New Aquitaine region since 2016, had judged it “devoid of any basis”. The chosen one claimed to see “an intention to harm”, “four months before the regional election” of June 2021, during which he was re-elected. According to the elected socialist, his former collaborator had rather been dismissed because of “his inability to collaborate in a peaceful way with his colleagues and partners”.
As part of this investigation, a search took place in May 2021 at the regional hotel and led former members of Mr. Rousset’s cabinet to be placed in police custody.