Tract for the legislative elections of 2012: Claude Guéant will be tried for "illicit financing" of campaign

It is a case which dates, but which will find its epilogue in the court.

The former minister of Nicolas Sarkozy Claude Guéant will be tried for "illicit financing", as part of the financing of his campaign for the legislative elections of 2012, in the Hauts-de-Seine.

In question ?

A leaflet that can be likened to a campaign leaflet distributed and paid for by the town hall of Boulogne-Billancourt.

In this case, Claude Guéant was indicted in July 2017. “During the upcoming hearing, (Claude Guéant) will continue to justify his innocence in this case in which he appears more, in reality, as being a victim of made awkward by a third party ”, reacted to AFP his lawyer, Me Philippe Bouchez El-Ghozi.

In the letter, printed and then distributed by the town hall of Boulogne-Billancourt, the mayor Pierre-Christophe Baguet announced that he would renounce standing in the legislative elections in the constituency, in favor of Claude Guéant.

To which was added a letter of two pages, signed by the hand of Claude Guéant, in which, the one who was then Minister of the Interior said he wanted to "represent with dignity in the National Assembly the inhabitants of Boulogne-Billancourt".

Opposing Claude Guéant in the battle, then a dissident candidate for the right, Thierry Solère had denounced this maneuver.

Pierre-Christophe Baguet admits his guilt

For his part Pierre-Christophe Baguet, who is still the LR mayor of Boulogne-Billancourt, admitted his guilt and must be tried in the coming weeks during an appearance on prior admission of guilt (CRPC), a sort of plea- French guilty. "The mayor recognizes an error that the magistrates have qualified as an offense", reacted to AFP his lawyer, Me Mario Stasi.

The former Minister of the Interior is already involved in several other cases, including the one concerning the Libyan financing of Nicolas Sarkozy's electoral campaign in 2007. Claude Guéant is also indicted for "complicity in favoritism" within the framework of the Elysee polls case (currently being tried in court).

The former right-hand man of Nicolas Sarkozy was also sentenced (after an appeal and a cassation appeal) in 2019 to two years in prison, one of which was closed for embezzlement of public funds.