Anne Hidalgo, in Paris on April 25, 2021. – JP PARIENTE / SIPA
The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo (PS), won on Wednesday the defamation lawsuit she had initiated against a journalist from the magazine Capital. In an article from October 2017, the journalist claimed that she had benefited from a “fictitious job” between March 2001 and April 2002. The court did not grant the author “the benefit of good faith” and sentenced him to a fine of 1,000 euros.
According to the magazine, Anne Hidalgo had continued to receive her salary as chief labor inspector, paid by the Ministry of Labor, while she had become a Paris councilor in March 2001 then first assistant to Bertrand Delanoë. Between her election in March 2001 and April 2002, the mayor remained a labor inspector. Her salary continued to be paid to her because she was then made available by her administration to work in the office of the Minister of Justice Marylise Lebranchu (PS), for whom she was technical advisor and then project manager.
The chief of staff testifies in favor of the mayor
According to the author of the investigation, the journalist Philippe Eliakim, Anne Hidalgo was not or hardly present at the Ministry of Justice. “It seems that the article is more the result of a personal conviction” of the journalist, ruled the court, accusing him in particular of having relied on “rumors” and of having “exceeded the permissible limits of freedom expression ”.
The journalist “does not seem to have sought to know from people who worked with Anne Hidalgo within the Ministry of Justice what the reality of his activity could have been,” said the court.
The court recalled in particular that the chief of staff of Marylise Lebranchu at the time of the facts, not cited in the article, had affirmed that Anne Hidalgo had indeed carried out her mission at the Ministry of Justice “full time” with a volume of ‘particularly important’ time.