Former right-wing figure Michèle Alliot-Marie will be tried on July 1 in Nanterre in a case of illegal taking of interests in the town hall of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the prosecution told AFP on Thursday.
In January, an investigating magistrate ordered the 77-year-old former minister to be referred to a criminal court.
In this case, the former Minister of Defense, Interior, Justice and Foreign Affairs under Jacques Chirac then Nicolas Sarkozy is targeted for her alleged role in the payment of subsidies to an association chaired by her father when she was deputy mayor of Saint-Jean-de-Luz more than a decade ago.
A judicial investigation was opened in 2013 in Nanterre.
The investigation highlighted subsidies from the town hall of Saint-Jean-de-Luz to an association which organized the city's Young Directors Festival and was headed by Bernard Marie, who died in 2015.
An association would have recorded credit flows exceeding 260,000 euros
According to information collected during the investigation, between January 2010 and October 2012, this association recorded in its bank account credit flows exceeding 260,000 euros coming in particular from the Saint-Jean-de-Luz Tourist Office, itself even subsidized by the municipality.
Each year, the association received 25,000 euros from the town hall.
However, between 2009 and 2013, the date of the last edition of the directors' festival, the former right-wing figure was deputy mayor, in addition to his duties as Minister of Justice and then Minister of Foreign Affairs.
“Madame Michèle Alliot-Marie has not committed an offense
,” her lawyers, Rémi Lorrain and Christophe Ingrain, responded to AFP in mid-January.
The referral, which concerns facts dating back more than 12 years, is based on serious confusion in the understanding of this file.
We will have no difficulty in demonstrating the innocence of Michèle Alliot-Marie.”