On March 30, MEP LR Brice Hortefeux had lunch with BFMTV columnist Alain Duhamel in a private apartment in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, transformed into a clandestine restaurant and held by chef Christophe Leroy, who was also placed in police custody in the case of the Palais Vivienne, reveals Medipart.
The former Minister of the Interior under Nicolas Sarkozy admitted having participated in this lunch, believing then to be "
in the nails
".
To read also: Chalençon, the runaway of a rumor and the French on edge
Initially, the lunch between the two men was to be held at the LR party headquarters, but the venue eventually changed.
“A person I know came to me for something quite different, and in the conversation said to me: 'If you have lunches or dinners, there is a business club of which I am a member and it is quite possible. to organize that '”
, tells Mediapart the former minister who says he then asked if the thing was legal.
“The person answers me: 'Yes'. Moreover, to show me that it is legal, she gives me Internet documents, specifying that every day, it is published on social networks. She also sent me an
article from
Ouest-France of March 7
praising the thing (...) This person said to me: 'There are a lot of people passing by, companies, elected officials ...' When you know that, you you say that you are in the nails ”
, explains Brice Hortefeux.
The former boss of Place Beauvau says that lunch was spent in an “
isolated room
” with less than six people:
“I would have been told: there are eight of you, I would have said no (...) Everything seemed legal ”.
"
A little trapped
"
The day before lunch, Alain Duhamel was informed of the change of address.
“I didn't know what it was, it wasn't specified, I went.
I thought it would either be his house or a friend of his, and then I got into that thing.
I'm not a club type at all, etc.
And then I noticed that there were people eating lunch.
I was immediately taken to a small dining room at the back, where there were three of us
,
”
recalls the journalist.
The identity of the third person has not been revealed by Mediapart.
"As I am rather well behaved, I was not going to make a big deal out of going,
but I was so confused that when I got out, I took the wrong Uber and only realized it at the end." of 300 meters
”, testifies the columnist who says to have felt“
a little trapped
”.
This is a new twist in the “
Palais Vivienne
” and “
Leroy's Business Club
”
affair
.
It all started with an M6 report revealing the existence of clandestine dinners in private places, including chef Christophe Leroy's “club” near avenue George-V in Paris but also the “Palais Vivienne”, property of collector Pierre-Jean Chalençon.
Questioned on a hidden camera, the latter then declared to have "
dined this week in two or three illegal restaurants, with a certain number of ministers
".
He has since reconsidered his comments by invoking "
humor
" and declaring that it was an "
April Fool's Day
".
Christophe Leroy and Pierre-Jean Chalençon were however both placed in police custody, before being released.
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/KMEYMJKESBAZBE4MRBAM4TGHIQ.jpg)
