“The elements with which I am accused are infamous,” the former PS mayor of Argenteuil Philippe Doucet complained to the criminal court at the opening of a hearing that he had been waiting for “since 2014”. The former councilor of the commune of Val-d’Oise, accused of having created a municipal weekly without a call for tenders in 2008, has been on trial since Wednesday in Paris for embezzlement of public funds, illegal taking of interests and misdemeanor of favoritism.
Mr. Doucet, current member of the national council of the socialist party, highlighted his lack of knowledge at the time in terms of managing a community, he who, until 2008, had only been elected from the opposition. “Putting out a six or eight page spread, with less than 10,000 characters, seemed possible to me,” says Philippe Doucet at the helm. “I didn’t imagine the level of procedure that it required,” added the man who was a senior executive in the private sector before entering politics.
A total bill amounting to 206,025 euros
The creation and design of this municipal weekly gave substance to a very large part of the debates on Wednesday. Philippe Doucet is thus accused of having entrusted the production of “L’Argenteuillais” to the company of an elected PS from his department, Alain Assouline, without competitive bidding, with a total invoice, for around fifty issues, amounting to 206,025 euros. Questioned several times, both by the judge and by the prosecutor about the absence of a call for tenders, he lost patience: “all that at the time did not come to my desk”, “all that was not not on my radar.”
“Why do you want me not to trust a communications director, a financial director? », says the former elected official. “All these people are covering themselves by saying that it’s the mayor’s fault but they didn’t do their job,” he tackles. Ahead of this trial, Alain Assouline was sentenced, in June, to 35,000 euros for concealment of favoritism and concealment of illegal taking of interest, in prior admission of guilt (CRPC), a sort of French-style guilty plea. The trial continues Thursday with requisitions and pleadings.