A preliminary investigation was opened on Monday, September 26, for embezzlement of public funds in the context of the presidential campaign of the candidate of the Republicans (LR), Valérie Pécresse, following a report by Julien Bayou (Europe Ecologie-Les Greens, EELV), said the Paris prosecutor’s office on Tuesday, confirming information from BFM-TV.
The report of the resigning national secretary of EELV, addressed to the prosecution on April 19, also targeted the offenses of illegal financing of electoral campaigns, illegal financing of political parties, abuse of corporate assets and illegal taking of interests. The investigations were entrusted to the brigade for the repression of economic crime, said the prosecution.
“We are not aware of this procedure. All the rules have been scrupulously respected, declared to Monde the entourage of candidate LR. The Greens still use the same method of slanderous denunciation. We trust justice. »
In April 2021Mr. Bayou, then EELV candidate for the presidency of the Ile-de-France region, against Mr.me Pécresse, had indeed already reported to the National Commission for Campaign Accounts and Political Funding (CNCCFP) what he considered to be a use of public money by the outgoing president – at the head of her micro-party Free! since his departure from LR – with a view to his re-election in the ballot on June 20 and 27. In question: a “massive poster campaign in September 2020 on the region’s first participatory budget”or the distribution in mailboxes of three million fourteen-page leaflets praising the balance sheet of Mr.me Pécresse with the logo of the region.
“Blend of Genres”
This time, Julien Bayou relies in particular on the resignation of the regional councilor Babette de Rozières from the campaign team and from all the commissions due to “disagreements she expressed with regard to the presidential campaign of Valérie Pécresse, also president of the Ile-de-France region”.
In this letter of resignation dated March 8, Mr.me from Rozieres “explains acting in the interest of Valérie Pécresse, but the mix of genres between the regional president and the presidential candidate seems complete”. She also advances “the alleged lack of interest of the candidate for overseas as well as the level of the campaign”according to this report.
Julien Bayou also mentions an interview with Mme of Rozières granted to OutremerNews in which she denounces “arrangements in the Ile-de-France region” with the regional elected Patrick Karam accused of “customary practices”accusations which, according to him, deserve “to be clarified or invalidated”. This report also refers to “the contribution on her working time of an agent, the chief of staff of the president of the region, to the development of the program of the presidential campaign of the right”.
Valérie Pécresse spent 14.3 million euros for a single round of voting, but without reaching the 5% mark of votes which would have allowed her to obtain reimbursement of her campaign expenses. After her defeat, she had moreover appealed for donations to fill a hole of 5 million euros.