A preliminary investigation conducted by the Lyon public prosecutor's office concludes that a crime of favoritism in the public market for the 2018 edition of the Festival of Lights in Lyon is possible, AFP learned Thursday, November 4 from a judicial source.
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According to the investigation, negotiations during the negotiation phase of the market would have allowed the scenographer Damien Fontaine to be selected in the call for tenders in an unfair manner, to the detriment of another artist, Milosh Luczynski.
The file was sent this week to those potentially implicated.
An ongoing investigation
The various protagonists and their lawyers have until December 20 to communicate any observations or requests for acts, before the prosecution takes its decision on the legal follow-up to be given to the case.
As it stands, the investigation by the judicial customs service considers that the public market which decided on the award of the illumination show of the Fourvière hill would be tainted with irregularities.
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The investigators pointed to exchanges in the midst of the negotiation phase of the market, between the artist Damien Fontaine, his producer and Jean-François Zurawik, at the time director of the famous Lyon event.
The scenographer, several times awarded at the Festival of Lights, an extremely popular event, suggests that he will modify the content of his project, a few days before the final negotiation meeting.
Threatened with concealment of favoritism, the scenographer Damien Fontaine, who currently signs a sound and light at the Saint-Jean cathedral in Lyon, denies having benefited from information during the call for tenders.
Judicial customs investigators believe that prosecution could also concern the producer, for concealment of favoritism, and complicity in favoritism and a project manager of the events management of the city.
Emblematic personality of the Festival of Lights, Jean-François Zurawik died in October 2020, but the procedure continues.
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“
The in-depth investigation fully confirms the doubts we had.
But the responsibility of elected officials is not addressed.
None were heard.
However, the community was responsible for respecting the rules of this public market.
We do not want some to serve as fuses,
”said Charlotte Grudman, a civil party lawyer for creator Milosh Luczynski.
According to the newspaper
Le Monde
, which revealed the case Thursday afternoon, the lawyer will ask the prosecution to hear the elected officials who were in charge at the time at the town hall of Lyon.