Former Prime Minister Manuel Valls files a complaint for defamation against
Liberation
, after the publication of an article insinuating illegal financing of 2 million euros of the campaign for the investiture of the Socialist Party in 2016, by a businessman Congolese, Lucien Ebata.
"
I immediately understand the objective of this front page: to harm me and discredit me without the slightest doubt, barely the shadow of a nuance
", relates Manuel Valls.
“
Journalists have indeed reported to me the conversations of a man with his wife.
He would have told him in a private discussion on November 22, 2016 that he had been asked 'by people close to Manuel Valls for the hidden financing of his campaign'.
The man in question would be called Lucien Ebata.
This man, the CEO of Orion Oil, is totally unknown to me.
Also, what people is he talking about?
No one in my entourage or among my collaborators was able to solicit him for 'occult financing'
", defends the former Prime Minister, indicating several inconsistencies in the account of the left-wing newspaper, such as the date of the launch of his candidacy, as well as than checking his campaign accounts.
Read alsoManuel Valls sentenced to pay more than 270,000 euros for illegal financing of his campaign in Barcelona
For Manuel Valls,
Liberation
suffered a drift "
which is none other than that of a part of the left, consolidating my idea that there were indeed two irreconcilable lefts...
".
The daily would "
obviously
" seek to harm him with "
defamatory remarks which are not based on anything
".
Manuel Valls, retired from political life, claims to feel "
dirty, soiled
" and to have nothing to reproach himself with "
unlike the director and the two journalists of
Liberation
who carried out an operation with the aim of harming [him].
".
