The debates did not really start on Tuesday but we can already see the position of the forces involved.
On this first day of hearing before the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), Edouard Balladur and his former Minister of Defense François Léotard, prosecuted for complicity in the abuse of social good, are there.
More than twenty-five years later, this mixed court composed of both professional judges and parliamentarians will dive behind the scenes of the failed presidential campaign of “Doudou” in 1995.
The prosecution accuses the former host of Matignon, also tried for concealment, of having benefited from retrocommissions in cash on the sidelines of gigantic arms contracts signed a year earlier with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
The deposit of a payment of 10.25 million francs in cash on April 26, 1995 into his campaign account is at the heart of the matter.
Suspicions that the two defendants refute not without a certain exasperation.
Fleece vest and leather jacket, François Léotard conspicuously reads two books - by Bertolt Brecht and Henry Bauchau - at a break as if to signify his apparent serenity, even a certain detachment.
The former minister, who scribbles a few notes on a sheet of paper, is not assisted by any lawyer.
“This is my honor.
I will defend him myself, ”Leo says at the start of the hearing, clearly annoyed by the lawsuits he is the subject of.
The prosecution accuses him of having encouraged the establishment of a second network of intermediaries - the K network of Ziad Takieddine - considered unnecessary.
Which network would then have redistributed this unduly perceived windfall in the form of retrocommissions.
"I would suggest that the use of the conditional be used more frequently"
Dark gray suit, white shirt and red tie, Edouard Balladur still displays a certain presence at the top of his 91 years.
Her face is emaciated, her hair has turned white, but her voice has not lost any of its characteristic phrasing.
At the end of the long and tedious presentation by President Dominique Pauthe, the former Prime Minister does not hide his irritation either.
"In such a complicated case, I would suggest that the use of the conditional be used more frequently," he says, professor and sententious.
A little earlier, Me Félix de Belloy, one of his lawyers, had asked the Court for additional information.
"In this case we started from the postulate that Edouard Balladur had financed his campaign with hidden funds and, on this conviction, we built the rest", laments the lawyer who denigrates an instruction compared to "a case of school of syllogisms and deduction ”.
In his demonstration, Me de Belloy suggests that the investigating judges did not sufficiently seek the real beneficiaries of the commissions paid on the sidelines of these huge contracts of more than 5 billion francs.
"Dilatory maneuver", sweeps François Molins, the attorney general of the Court of Cassation who supports the accusation in person.
"None of the acts requested appears useful for the manifestation of the truth," he continues.
Unsurprisingly, the defense request is attached to the merits of the case.
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The hearing resumes this Wednesday afternoon.
Edouard Balladur planned to make an opening statement.
