The investigation into suspicions of fictitious jobs of MEPs’ assistants continues to stick to the skin of the MoDem. The latter, as well as the UDF, a party swallowed up by the MoDem when it was created in 2007, were indicted in December for “complicity and concealment of embezzlement of public funds” we learned on Thursday from close sources. folder. Contacted, the lawyer for both parties did not wish to react.
The survey concerns the organization of the work of people hired with European funds as parliamentary assistants for MEPs, but who could have held a job, full or part-time, at the UDF then at the MoDem.
Concretely, according to a report made in April 2021 by the Anti-Corruption Office (Oclciff), in charge of investigations, the centrist party has set up an “old and more or less informal system” of embezzlement of European funds to pay its employees.
“To support his party and ensure its functioning at a lower cost, François Bayrou and Marielle de Sarnez (right-hand man of party president François Bayrou, who died in January 2021) supported by party officials, have put at the service of the UDF , then MoDem, parliamentary assistants paid by the European Parliament ”, it is summarized there. The damage to the European Parliament is estimated at 1.4 million euros.
Fifteen people, including François Bayrou, former Minister of Justice Michel Mercier and former MEPs Sylvie Goulard, Nathalie Griesbeck and Jean-Luc Bennahmias, have already been prosecuted in this judicial investigation conducted since 2017 by investigating judges from the financial center of the Paris judicial court.
The weakened Modem
The Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation in March 2017 after the denunciation of a former elected member of the National Front, Sophie Montel, on the fictitious jobs of employees of 19 of her colleagues from all sides, including two from the Modem: Robert Rochefort and Marielle by Sarnez. The Modem has always defended itself by assuring to have “respected all the rules”.
At the time, however, these revelations weakened the party, President Emmanuel Macron’s main ally, and led to the resignation of François Bayrou, then Keeper of the Seals, Marielle de Sarnez, the Minister of European Affairs and Sylvie Goulard, Minister of the Armed Forces. , one month after their entry into government.