Paris, October 09, 2015. Franck Attal, one of the leaders of Bygmalion arrives at the financial center of the Paris prosecutor’s office to be questioned about the overshooting of Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign account. – AFP
- Postponed due to the coronavirus in March, the trial of the “Bygmalion” case resumed last week before the 11th chamber of the Paris judicial tribunal.
- Former executives of the UMP, responsible for the 2012 campaign and leaders of the Bygmalion company: in total, fourteen people will be tried for this case of false invoices, including the former head of state, who incurs a light sentence .
- During the hearings of the last two days, the court was satisfied that the executives of the subcontracting company had deliberately set up a fraudulent system.
At the Paris court
Sébastien Borivent no longer remembers the exact date. Somewhere around “end of March, beginning of April” 2012. But he sees the scene perfectly. “We were in my office. It was the afternoon… ”The financial director of Bygmalion understood at that time that his group was going to set up a system of false invoices to allow Nicolas Sarkozy to multiply the meetings of his presidential campaign without worrying about the spending limit authorized by law. “The request came from the UMP. I understood quite quickly that it was fraudulent… ”
If there was still any doubt, the Paris judicial court had confirmation, this Thursday afternoon, that Nicolas Sarkozy had indeed benefited from an illegal system to commit more than 42.8 million euros in order to stay at the Elysee Palace, when the law only allowed him to spend 22.5 million to campaign. As his former colleague, Franck Attal, had done on Wednesday, Sébastien Borivent, one of the executives of Bygmalion, confirmed it at the helm of the 11th chamber.
“The idea was to get around the thing,” he blurted out very quietly. We are asked to invoice the account of the UMP rather than that of the applicant’s funding association. I am very surprised. We’re not talking about an accountant’s VAT fraud here. We are on the fraud of a political power! The fraud of a political power in place! “
A USB key with the whole system of false invoices
Scheduled to last almost five weeks, the Bygmalion trial therefore only needed two days to confirm the essential information. He therefore has time to try to find out who had the idea to set up this system and who was really informed. And we already know that it won’t be that simple …
Arranged on both sides of the courtroom, the fourteen defendants in the case indeed compete in ingenuity to discard. And this is nothing new. On Wednesday, at the bar, Franck Attal, the man responsible for organizing the candidate’s meetings, recounted how much evidence had been destroyed. And the extent of the fraud would perhaps not have been detected if Sébastien Borivent had not called for the creation of a table summarizing the system “to save evidence” in case the case comes out “two or three years later “. Good pick ? It is today this table discovered on a USB key which serves as a base for the accusation.
Jérôme Lavrilleux in the viewfinder
Listening to Caroline Viguier, Bygmalion had, in fact, no real choice. Before questioning Sébastien Borivent, the president of the 11th chamber spent a long time detailing Bygmalion’s accounts. Where we understand that the company, financially bloodless, could not ignore a client as loyal and profitable as the UMP …
From there to accepting all his requests? The next days of hearing will try to find out. Relaunched again and again, Sébastien Borivent “thinks” that the fraudulent request emanated from Jérôme Lavrilleux, former deputy director of the campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy and damned soul of the right.
Quietly seated in his chair, he waits his turn. He knows that he will be asked who thought of setting up this system. His hearing is scheduled for next week.
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