A preliminary investigation targeting two relatives of François Fillon, former MP Jérôme Chartier and his ex-collaborator Caroline Morard, has been opened, confirmed on Thursday the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF), confirming information from Challenges. The PNF did not specify the opening date and the elements targeted by this investigation.
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In its article, the weekly writes that the prosecution is working on suspicions of " embezzlement of public funds aimed in particular at the employment of Caroline Morard as parliamentary assistant " of Jérôme Chartier. Hearings were held by the Central Office for Combating Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses (OCLCIFF), he added.
Mrs. Morard was in charge of press relations for Mr. Fillon during his campaign for the primary of the right then during the campaign for the presidential election of 2017, atomized by the suspicions of fictitious jobs of his wife Penelope which earned the couple a trial in correctional in Paris completed Wednesday. But as of 2017, the press had noted that during the 2012-2017 term, Ms. Morard was paid as parliamentary assistant to Mr. Chartier, the right arm of François Fillon, then member of the Val d'Oise and vice-president of the Île-de-France region. He has since lost the mandate and abandoned the function.
In his declaration of interests and activity to the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life (HATVP), Mr. Chartier designated in January 2014 Ms. Morard as his parliamentary assistant in charge of " general collaboration ", where a the second parliamentary assistant was confined to " mail monitoring ", without it being known whether this division of tasks had continued thereafter. Quoted by Liberation in an article at the end of October 2016, Ms. Morard replied " working part-time for the deputy (Chartier) and for the campaign (Fillon) ". She no longer appeared on a list of collaborators of deputies appearing in February 2017 on the website of the National Assembly.
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