Accused in an article in
Capital
magazine
of having benefited from a
"fictitious job"
between March 2001 and April 2002, the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo on Thursday sued a journalist and former trade unionist for
"defamation"
before the Paris court.
The prosecutor who considered that
"the defamatory character"
of the incriminated article was
"characterized"
left it to the court to fix the penalty incurred by the two defendants.
Read also: Accused of fictitious employment, Hidalgo files a complaint
Ms. Hidalgo's lawyer, for his part, wanted the defendants to be ordered to pay a symbolic fine of one euro and that the judgment be published in the magazine.
"To attribute to a person to have a fictitious or imaginary job, that is to say to receive a remuneration without carrying out any work seems defamatory to me",
affirmed Me Pierre-Emmanuel Blard.
The lawyers of the two defendants demanded the release of their client.
The case dates back to October 2017 when Capital published an article claiming to provide
"proof" that
Anne Hidalgo would have benefited from a
"fictitious job".
According to the magazine, she continued to receive her salary as chief labor inspector, paid by the labor ministry, while she had become a Paris councilor in March 2001 then first assistant to Bertrand Delanoë.
Between her election in March 2001 and April 2002, Ms. Hidalgo remained a labor inspector.
Her salary continued to be paid to her because she was then made available by her administration to work in the office of Minister of Justice Marylise Lebranchu, for whom she was technical advisor and then project manager.
According to the author of the investigation, the journalist Philippe Eliakim, Anne Hidalgo was not or hardly present at the Ministry of Justice.
"I made a very serious investigation, it is not ideological"
, defended the journalist at the bar.
He assured to have no
"personal animosity"
against the mayor of Paris.
The former trade unionist, a retired labor inspector quoted in the incriminated article, explained for his part that he was not fighting against Ms. Hidalgo
"but against the administration".
But was there really a
“fictitious job”?
For Me Blard, the article lacks
"proof".
He notably reproached the journalist for not having questioned the chief of staff of Marylise Lebranchu who confirmed to the civil parties that Anne Hidalgo
"carried out her full-time job"
at the Ministry of Justice.
He also criticized the tone of the article which he said lacked
"prudence and moderation"
and was
"without reserve or hindsight".
"In this affair, the press is playing the role that is attributed to it: to be the watchdog of democracy,"
argued the magazine's lawyer.
The judgment will be pronounced on May 12.