The national financial prosecutor's office closes its preliminary investigation into the town hall of Marseille and plans a trial for Gaudin

The National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) has completed its preliminary investigation into the working time of Marseille municipal agents and is considering a possible trial for the former mayor LR Jean-Claude Gaudin and six of his relatives, we learned from sources concordant Friday 4 December.

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According to Jean-Claude Gaudin's lawyer, Me Sindrès, the PNF plans to prosecute the former mayor for "negligence which allowed the embezzlement by third parties of public funds".

The PNF accuses the former mayor of "inertia" in the modification of the working time of the agents, "which he firmly disputes", according to Me Sindrès who assures that "the system criticized today dates back to previous terms of office" .

"The preliminary investigation is over and the PNF has opened the adversarial phase in this case", for its part indicated the national financial prosecutor, adding that "any decisions to prosecute will be taken at the end of the phase contradictory".

The lawyers involved in this case, who received the PNF's report, have until December 23 to send them their observations or requests for additional documents.

"There is no decision for the moment on a possible trial, the adversarial phase can reshuffle the cards," said a source close to the case.

"Abracadabrantesque" undue overtime, unjustified absenteeism, both at the Samu social and in museums or libraries: the conclusions of the PNF report, unveiled on Friday by La Provence, overwhelm the management of Jean-Claude Gaudin at the helm of the second city of France for 25 years.

The PNF investigated for four years;

at the origin of the launching of this investigation, the revelation of a false pointing system of the employees of the Samu social.

Besides Gaudin, according to Provence, his chief of staff Claude Bertrand, the director general of services Jean-Claude Gondard and his deputy Jean-Pierre Chanal, the two directors of human resources Henri Sogliuzzo and Yves Rusconi, and the former director of Samu social René Giancarli, are also likely to be prosecuted.

At the end of 2019, the regional chamber of accounts had issued two very critical reports on the management of Marseille, the working time of municipal officials to the state of schools, including a "worrying" financial situation.

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