A prestigious castle rented for a small fortune, for an evening. Menus at 165 euros developed by the Paul Bocuse Institute, 90 guests and an overall bill amounting to just over 100,000 euros. According to the website Mediapart, Laurent Wauquiez the president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region would have seen things big for the second edition of the “summit dinner”. Among the participants, powerful business leaders, renowned sportsmen, cooks, representatives of the associative world or press bosses driven in a luxury van to the gardens of the site in order to have an aperitif there.
The problem, move on Mediapart : the event, which was held in June in Beaujolais and which brought together all the regional elite, would have been financed with public money. But the Region sees nothing reprehensible in it, considering that the event was useful for its influence.
“Create great synergies between regional players”
The community confirms having paid the bill, without having had recourse to private financing, assuming its choices. “The purpose of this event is to bring together those who work for our region, whether they come from Cantal, Drôme, Ales or Lyon”, she explains to 20 minutes. And to add: “The ambition is to create great synergies between the regional actors and thus to support the development of the region. »
“That Laurent Wauquiez cultivates and maintains a network of personalities is quite understandable. That he reserves “VIP” evenings for him as part of his presidential ambitions is understandable. On the other hand, that these social events are entirely financed by the Region, in the greatest secrecy and in total budgetary opacity, is not only scandalous ethically, but also very doubtful in terms of legality, “immediately reacted the socialist group, environmentalist and democrat from the region who is asking for reimbursement of this expense from the regional budget.
In addition, the community is in the sights of the financial prosecutor’s office. In September, a search was carried out at the headquarters of the regional council as part of a preliminary investigation into the employment of Laurent Wauquiez’s collaborators and the remuneration of one of his relatives, Ange Sitbon. Three years earlier, the Regional Chamber of Accounts had ticked on the “disproportionate” salary of the person concerned, stressing that he represented “more than double” the average of that of his peers within the community.