At the end of an indictment lasting nearly seven hours, François Bayrou was designated by the two prosecutors as the “main decision-maker” of a “system” of embezzlement of European funds for the benefit of centrist structures between 2005 and 2017. This is why, on Tuesday, the prosecution requested a 30-month suspended prison sentence, a fine of 70,000 euros and three years of suspended ineligibility against the leader of the MoDem for complicity in embezzlement of public funds in the affair of the assistants of MEPs.
Against ten other centrist executives and elected officials, the prosecution demanded sentences ranging from 8 to 20 months in prison and a fine of 10,000 to 30,000 euros, with sentences of ineligibility also suspended. Fines of 300,000 euros of which 100,000 are firm, and 500,000 euros of which 200,000 are firm, have been requested for the UDF and the Modem respectively.
“Attack on the values it promotes”
François Bayrou “is experienced in political life and its mechanisms and while he holds high the values of probity and exemplarity (…) he knows perfectly well to what extent the diversions that he orchestrates undermine the values that he promotes,” said the prosecutor. According to the accusation, this “illicit modus operandi” aimed to divert a third of the budgets of MEPs to finance contracts for parliamentary assistants who in reality worked for the parties.
The facts “impose a clear criminal response” because “such misappropriations have both symbolically and very concretely a strong impact on the transparency of public life and the balance of party financing,” launched the magistrate. The prosecutors nevertheless stressed that they had given rise to “partisan enrichment” and not to “personal enrichment” and recalled that the investigating judges had ultimately retained 11 disputed jobs for a total damage of around 300,000 euros.
A twenty-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 20,000 euros, as well as a year of suspended ineligibility, were requested against the former Minister of Justice Michel Mercier, for his role as treasurer of the party between 2005 and 2010. The defense will plead from Wednesday. The trial is scheduled to end on November 21.