Ferrand / Mutuelles de Bretagne: the Court of Cassation decides on Wednesday on prescription

The Court of Cassation must say Wednesday, September 7 if it confirms the prescription of the facts in the Mutuelles de Bretagne case, a thorn in the side of Richard Ferrand since 2017, which would lead to the extinction of the proceedings against him.

In this judicial investigation opened after a complaint from Anticor in 2017, Richard Ferrand is suspected of having set up a contentious real estate transaction: the rental from 2011 in Brest by the Mutuelles de Bretagne of premises purchased by his companion, for rent annual of 42,000 euros.

Former President of the National Assembly (2018-2022), Richard Ferrand, 60, was general manager of Mutuelles de Bretagne from 1998 to 2012, before becoming a pillar of Macronie.

Seized by his lawyers, the investigating chamber of the Douai Court of Appeal had ruled in March 2021 that the facts had been time-barred since 2014 or 2015, i.e. three years after the signing of the lease or after the resignation of Richard Ferrand from the Mutuals.

In both cases, before the facts are reported to justice.

A decision contested by Anticor, which during the hearing on June 22 before the Court of Cassation, requested that the limitation period begin when the facts were revealed by

, in 2017. Two years later, the one who was the fourth character of the State was indicted by three magistrates from Lille, and his companion, Sandrine Doucen, placed under the more favorable status of assisted witness.

The Advocate General recommended dismissing Anticor's appeal.

If the Court, which must deliver its judgment at the beginning of the afternoon, follows it, it will pave the way for the end of the proceedings for illegal taking of interest.

“Move on, there is nothing to see”, pointed out on the eve of the judgment one Anticor lawyer Claire Waquet.

but

in the file, she adds.

Another Anticor lawyer, Jérôme Karsenti,

.

"It's not Los Angeles (...) everyone knows each other."

In its appeal, Anticor argued that the offense had been

, considering that the relationship between Richard Ferrand and Sandrine Doucen was not known to all the administrators of Mutuelles de Bretagne.

An interpretation challenged at the hearing by the Advocate General.

He considered that no

tended to show that the couple had

their relationship and the terms of the operation.

,” insists AFP Emmanuel Piwnica, lawyer for Richard Ferrand.

For him, Brest

.

The Court of Cassation must also decide on the appeal, lodged this time by Richard Ferrand, arguing the nullity of the procedure, on the grounds that the Paris court was not territorially competent.

The investigating chamber rejected this request.

Seized by a first complaint from the association, the Brest prosecutor had opened a preliminary investigation in June 2017, closed without further action in October 2017. Anticor had filed a second complaint, with civil action, at the financial center in Paris.

The case was then disoriented in Lille a Parisian magistrate, vice-president of Anticor, having been temporarily present in the procedure.

Former socialist deputy, Richard Ferrand was one of the first supporters of Minister Emmanuel Macron under François Hollande.

He structured the En Marche party, co-piloted the nominations for the 2017 legislative elections, then took the lead of a group of some 300 deputies.

The revelation of the affair, in May 2017, had cost him his short-lived portfolio as Minister of Territorial Cohesion.

Without preventing him from being elected to the perch in the fall of 2018. In the last legislative elections, he lost the 6th constituency of Finistère, beaten by the candidate Nupes.