The couple of LFI deputies had been wrongly implicated in an article in the Point finally removed. An investigation was opened on Wednesday for fraud after the complaint by Raquel Garrido and Alexis Corbière, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Thursday, confirming information from BFMTV.
Last week, Point had published an article which unduly accused the couple of having exploited an undocumented cleaning lady, which he had immediately denied firmly: “everything is false”, had protested the deputies. Very rare fact, the article had been removed the next day. In an address to its readers, the newspaper admitted on Tuesday that the article had “turned out to be false” and “misleading”.
A “smoking” and “a rough editing”
Point invoked an “external smokeout, first” by writing: “people have probably sought to sell a false story to discredit Raquel Garrido and Alexis Corbière”. The weekly also explained that the screenshots of the text messages allegedly exchanged between the false employee and Raquel Garrido, and published by the journalist, “constituted a rough montage”.
At the same time, Point opened an internal investigation, the author of the article was laid off and summoned to an interview prior to a possible dismissal. The two deputies had for their part filed two complaints, including one against X for “forgery and use of forgery” and “identity theft”.
A journalist who “melted a lead”
Then, on Monday, the director of Point Etienne Gernelle said that the false information had been “invented” by still unknown speakers, then passed on by a journalist who had “melted a lead”.
On Tuesday, the journalist from Point Aziz Zemouri for his part filed a complaint against the former UDI deputy Jean-Christophe Lagarde and an ex-policeman, affirming that the latter, “who would be seconded to the town hall of Drancy”, whose mayor is the wife of Jean-Christophe Lagarde had contacted him at the end of May to put him in touch with a woman claiming to be the housekeeper, undeclared and without papers, of the couple of LFI deputies. Raquel Garrido, 48, was elected deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis against Lagarde in the second round of the legislative elections on June 19.