The judges of the 11th chamber of the Paris Criminal Court decided on Wednesday to sentence Alain Griset to a six-month suspended prison sentence.
The Minister Delegate in charge of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises was prosecuted for “incomplete or false declaration of his property situation” and “of his interests”.
His lawyer has already announced his intention to appeal.
The prosecution had requested ten to twelve months suspended prison sentence against him for having failed to declare, in August 2020, after his appointment to the government, part of his assets and his interests to the High Authority for the Transparency of Life public (HATVP).
The prosecutor had also requested a fine of 30,000 euros and a three-year ineligibility sentence which, he stressed at the hearing, would "automatically result in the ban from exercising public functions".
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In government since July 2020, Mr. Griset is the current Prime Minister to appear before a criminal court.
He was suspected of having intentionally concealed from the HATVP the holding of a stock savings plan (PEA) of 171,000 euros, as well as "direct holdings" in several companies such as Française des Jeux or Natixis.
Also at issue, a sum of 130,000 euros placed in his PEA and which belonged to the National Confederation of Crafts, Trades and Services (Cnams) of the North, an inter-professional organization that Mr. Griset had headed since 1991.
"I will continue as long as the president trusts me"
Before the court, Mr. Griset maintained that he had received in August 2019 "mandate" from the Cnams to "make this sum grow over a short period in order to buy real estate". He was in passing congratulated on the capital gain of 19,000 euros achieved in eleven months. “My mandate was to manage this money as president of Cnams. Not being president any more, this mandate ended. This money did not belong to me. It never belonged to me before being minister and even less after, ”he maintained.
The HATVP had taken legal action in November 2020 after noting the omission of Mr. Griset. For the institution, the main aim of the omission of declaration was "to prevent the revelation of facts liable to receive the criminal qualification of breach of trust". The prosecutor recalled that Cnams, as a legal person, did not have the right to open a PEA reserved for natural persons. "I was badly advised", explained Mr. Griset at the hearing, rejecting "the awkwardness" on his banker, the accountants and other "knowing who told me nothing".
During his trial, Mr. Griset, 68, a former taxi craftsman from northern France, defended his probity by pleading “an awkwardness” and rejecting any “dishonesty”.
His lawyer pleaded for the acquittal, stressing that his client “does not have an account abroad, a shell company and that there has been no massive tax evasion”.
In the event of a conviction, "I will continue as long as the president
(Emmanuel Macron)
trusts me," the minister said in mid-September.