The Court of Cassation rejected Wednesday, November 17 the appeal lodged by the mayor of Orange Jacques Bompard (South League) after his sentence to one year in prison and five years of ineligibility for illegal taking of interest.
On March 25, the Nîmes Court of Appeal also sentenced the far-right aedile to a fine of 30,000 euros.
"
The Court of Cassation notes that there is, in this case, no means likely to allow the admission of the appeal
" and therefore declares it "
not admitted
", according to the decision rendered by the court on November 17, consulted by AFP.
Read also Corsica: 6 months suspended prison sentence required against the mayor of Grosseto-Prugna for illegal taking of interest
"
I can only be surprised at such a decision which only confirms the arbitrariness that I have suffered since the start of this procedure which began in 2009
", reacted Jacques Bompard in a press release.
He announced that he was taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
"
I can only note the political motivation of such a court decision which endorses the disproportionate judgment pronounced on appeal,
" he added.
No penalty of ineligibility
In May 2019, the mayor of Orange was sentenced by the Criminal Court of Carpentras (Vaucluse) to a six-month suspended prison sentence. He was also fined 50,000 euros, half of which was suspended. He had, however, escaped the ineligibility penalty required by the prosecution. Jacques Bompard was indicted in December 2010 following the opening of a judicial investigation opened after the complaint of an orange wine operator, Bernard Jaume, former member of the FN. The facts go back to more than fifteen years, when Jacques Bompard was still elected from the National Front, since become the National Rally.
The justice accused the mayor of Orange for the sale by the city of real estate to his daughter and his son-in-law.
He was also implicated for having bought with his wife two building plots in an Orange subdivision via a real estate company (SCI).
However, this subdivision benefited from a technical easement (passage of sewerage, water and electricity networks) granted by the town hall during a vote in which the mayor had taken part, his lawyer told AFP. Me Benoît Fleury.
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/KMEYMJKESBAZBE4MRBAM4TGHIQ.jpg)
