Assistants to MoDem MEPs: Bayrou and ten other people sent back to court

So there could be a trial.

Two Parisian investigating judges ordered this Thursday the dismissal of the pillar of the majority François Bayrou, as well as ten other people, in the case of the alleged irregular employment of assistants to MEPs, learned AFP source close to the case.

The eleven centrist executives of the time, which also included the former Keeper of the Seals Michel Mercier or the former MEP Jean-Luc Bennahmias, but also the former UDF and its successor MoDem as legal persons, are suspected of having used European funds to hire parliamentary assistants who in fact worked, at least partially, for the party between 2009 and 2014.

On the other hand, a dismissal was ordered for Sylvie Goulard, who had resigned from the Ministry of the Armed Forces in 2017 a month after her arrival, following the revelations on these facts, but also for the former MEP Nathalie Griesbeck and for the current MoDem MP Maud Gatel.

According to the order of which AFP was aware, François Bayrou "appears as the decision-maker and the person responsible for the establishment and operation of the fraudulent system" in question.

At the beginning of February, he had challenged any fictitious employment and other “processes” of embezzlement of public funds within his party.

"In view of the mode of operation of the parties resulting from the statutes, and the weight of its two heads, François Bayrou and Marielle de Sarnez", deceased and therefore who is therefore no longer the subject of proceedings, "it appeared clearly that the arbitrations and instructions given had been their doing, ”argue the magistrates again.

“The embezzlement of European funds was organized by the political parties UDF and (his successor) MoDem, whose responsibility is engaged and several people, members of the governance of the political parties, have been identified as accomplices in the embezzlement by setting up the cogs necessary for the fraudulent system”, they write again.

“The European deputies, main authors of the embezzlements carried out were the vectors of these embezzlements, by the fictitious employment of parliamentary assistants for the exclusive benefit of the political party”, also underline the judges.

The investigations mainly target the 2009-2014 European legislature but also, to a lesser extent, the previous and subsequent legislatures.

The damage to the European Parliament is assessed at 1.4 million euros.

These revelations had weakened the MoDem, President Emmanuel Macron's main ally, and led to the resignation of François Bayrou, then Keeper of the Seals, Marielle de Sarnez (European Affairs) and Ms. Goulard, a month after their entry into government in 2017.