It is a new investigation which targets François Fillon.
According to RTL information, the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) opened preliminary information in 2017 concerning another alleged fictitious job than that of his wife Penelope Fillon.
That of Maël Renouard, a writer recruited from November 2013 to September 2015 as parliamentary assistant to help the deputy write his book “Faire”.
The assembly would then have paid him a salary of 38,000 euros for this period.
This book sold 300,000 copies and reportedly brought in 550,000 euros to François Fillon.
The investigation, carried out by the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Fiscal Infractions (OCLCIFF), must determine whether Maël Renouard's contract as parliamentary assistant could be justified by this single mission.
An investigation to "attack François Fillon a few weeks before his appeal trial"
A confrontation would have taken place between François Fillon and Maël Renouard in early 2021 and, again according to RTL information, a computer was seized during a search of the former parliamentary assistant.
In the coming weeks, the PNF will have to decide whether to open a judicial investigation to deepen the investigation or whether to dismiss it.
Contacted by Le Parisien, Me Antonin Lévy, lawyer for the former Prime Minister of Nicolas Sarkozy, denounces "the relentlessness of the PNF which artificially maintains open empty files for four years which does not deceive anyone and has the sole purpose of attacking again to François Fillon a few weeks before his appeal trial.
"According to the council," it is simply indisputable that a parliamentary collaborator can participate in the writing of a political book by a deputy.
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In the section of the fictitious jobs of his wife Penelope, François Fillon appealed against his conviction in June 2020 to five years in prison, including two closed, and will be retried in November.
Contacted, the PNF did not respond to our requests this Friday morning.
