While the current Minister of Justice has been before the judges of the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) since Monday, another court, this time criminal, will hear one of his predecessors this Tuesday. Former Minister of Justice François Bayrou is in fact expected at the start of the afternoon in Paris, where he is being tried in the case of the parliamentary assistants of the UDF and the MoDem.
The three-time presidential candidate is appearing for complicity, by instigation, in embezzlement of public funds, which means he faces 10 years of imprisonment, a million euro fine and 10 years of ineligibility.
Bayrou present since the start of the trial
Since the trial opened on October 16, the High Commissioner for Planning, 72, head of the party allied to Emmanuel Macron, has been present at all the hearings, but has never yet spoken on the merits.
Sitting on one of the seats reserved for defendants, he listens to the interrogations of his relatives, ten centrist executives and elected officials, suspected like him of having used European funds between 2005 and 2017 to pay parliamentary assistants who in reality worked for centrist organizations .
For the investigating judges who referred him to court, the mayor of Pau is the “decision-maker and person responsible for the establishment and operation of the fraudulent system of reducing party charges, via the conclusion of contracts parliamentary assistance of convenience by MEPs”. In an interview with the Republic of the Pyrenees before the trial, François Bayrou said he was “hurt, deeply” but “completely determined to ensure that the truth of the facts prevail”. For him, the accusations are “false” and the investigation “unfounded”.
A trial that cost him his ministry
The affair exploded in 2017 with the denunciation of a former National Front elected official, Sophie Montel, on fictitious jobs of collaborators of 19 of her colleagues from all sides. At the time, François Bayrou decided to support Emmanuel Macron, a choice rewarded after the presidential election by his appointment to the Ministry of Justice. Only 34 days after his arrival, he was forced to throw in the towel, with the two other MoDem ministers, due to the opening of the preliminary investigation which would lead to this trial.
The damage to the European Parliament was once estimated at more than one million euros but, at the end of the investigation, the judges only retained 11 allegedly fraudulent contracts, for a total amount of 350,000 euros – Parliament, the civil party, retains the figure of 293,000 euros.