BRUSSELS -
The Paris prosecutor's office has opened an investigation against the president of the centrist MoDem party François Bayrou and twelve other people for using European funds to hire parliamentary assistants
for their MEPs who in reality would have worked for the party and not for the Eurochamber.
According to investigators, the story would have taken place in the legislature between 2009 and 2014 and among the twelve people mentioned in the investigations, former Justice Minister Michel Mercier and former MEPs Sylvie Goulard, Nathalie Griesbeck and Jean-Luc Bennahmias stand out and the damage to the European Parliament, according to the French authorities it is valued at 1.4 million euros.