The party launched by Manuel Valls was recently condemned to pay a hefty fine when he tried to win the town hall of Barcelona in 2019. The former head of the French government then created the platform called Barcelona per el Canvi (Barcelona for change).
If the adventure finally proved to be a failure, it still pursues the former executive of the Socialist Party.
The Court of Auditors recently sanctioned this party with the payment of a fine of 275,000 euros, for acts of illicit financing of the electoral campaign, noted in particular our colleagues from Le Monde.
Two grievances are alleged against the party: an overrun of the expenditure ceiling, up to 25,000 euros.
But also an invoicing of certain expenses to third parties, which is strictly prohibited.
These invoices would represent a total of 250,000 euros.
These discrepancies had already been noted by the Spanish Court of Auditors in 2021.
No appeal filed by Manuel Valls
As indicated in the document published by our colleagues, this is the heaviest sanction imposed on a party during this election.
The same document specifies that Manuel Valls has not filed any appeal with the Supreme Court.
The Barcelona per el Canvi party, as indicated by Le Monde, has been replaced since the municipal elections by a formation called Valents.
Re-elected deputy in his constituency of Essonne under the label of the majority after losing the primary on the left for the presidential election, Manuel Valls had not sat for long at the Palais-Bourbon.
In 2018, he announced his decision to resign from his post to try to run for mayor of Barcelona.
He had finally failed by obtaining only 13% of the votes.
Manuel Valls had finally tried to become a deputy again by obtaining an investiture among the French abroad.
But the outgoing deputy Stéphane Vojetta had not heard it that way and had decided to maintain a dissident candidacy.
It was ultimately the latter who won, while Manuel Valls was eliminated in the first round.
