Former French Prime Minister François Fillon was sentenced on appeal to one year in prison on Monday. He also receives a fine of 375,000 euros and ten years of ineligibility in the case of the fictitious jobs of his wife Penelope.
In this case, which had exploded in the middle of the presidential campaign of the right-wing candidate in 2017, Ms. Fillon was given a two-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 375,000 euros, her former deputy Marc Joulaud three years in prison with reprieve. Ineligibility sentences of two and five years were also pronounced against them.
The couple and the former deputy were finally ordered to pay around 800,000 euros to the National Assembly, as a civil party.
Appeal in cassation possible
The defendants, who were absent when the decision was pronounced at the start of the afternoon at the Paris Court of Appeal, have the possibility of appealing in cassation.
The prison sentence imposed on Mr. Fillon can be adjusted: if he does not appeal, he will be summoned before a sentence enforcement judge who can decide, for example, whether to wear an electronic bracelet.
Lighter sentences
These convictions for embezzlement of public funds, complicity in the misuse of corporate assets and concealment of these two offenses in particular, are lighter than those pronounced at first instance, on June 29, 2020.
The Court of Appeal has indeed released the Fillon spouses concerning the first of three disputed contracts as parliamentary assistant to Penelope Fillon, between 1998 and 2002, ‘for the benefit of the doubt’.
The appeal court, on the other hand, confirmed the guilt of the defendants concerning the contract between Ms. Fillon and Marc Joulaud between 2002 and 2007, as well as for the contract between the spouses in 2012-2013. Similarly, the Franco-Welshwoman’s contract as ‘literary advisor’ to the Revue des deux mondes was deemed ‘fictitious’.
At first instance, the former tenant of Matignon between 2007 and 2012 had been sentenced to five years in prison, including two firm, 375,000 euros and ten years of ineligibility.
His wife had been given a three-year suspended prison sentence, a fine of 375,000 euros and two years of ineligibility, when Mr. Joulaud had received the same prison sentence accompanied by a fine of 20,000 euros and five years of ineligibility.
/ATS