In 2023, Raymond Avrillier, former deputy mayor of Grenoble and environmental activist, denounced the opacity of negotiations between the government and private companies during the renewal of motorway concessions in 2015.
According to information revealed by the weekly Marianne, which was confirmed to us this Thursday, the Paris prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into suspicions of forgery, notably involving the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire and the general secretary of the government. , Claire Landais.
According to the weekly, an investigation is underway, which the Paris prosecutor's office has not confirmed to AFP.
The Paris public prosecutor's office was seized in June 2023 of a complaint for suspicion of forgery, which notably accuses the Ministry of the Economy of having lied about the existence of documents linked to the renewal of motorway concessions in 2015, the prosecution indicated this Thursday.
“A complaint for forgery, first addressed to the national financial prosecutor's office, was the subject of a transfer in June 2023 to the Paris prosecutor's office,” he said.
A memorandum of understanding worth nearly 3.3 billion euros
Raymond Avrillier obtained communication, in 2019, of the memorandum of understanding worth nearly 3.3 billion euros, signed in 2015 between motorway concessionaires and the State, more particularly the ministries of the Economy and of the Environment, with Emmanuel Macron at their head on the one hand and Ségolène Royal on the other.
He has since continued to request preparatory documents for this motorway recovery program.
After the lack of response from the ministries despite a favorable opinion from the Commission for Access to Administrative Documents (CADA), he seized the Paris administrative court in 2019 to have this implicit refusal annulled, according to procedural elements of which he had knowledge of the AFP.
In this context, the services of the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire affirmed to the administrative court that the documents requested by Raymond Avrillier did not exist, which he disputes.
No reports “have been identified”
“After research, the services of the Ministry of the Economy (…) are not in possession of any document listed by the applicant.
They are therefore not able to produce them,” wrote and signed, in a letter dated March 16, 2022 addressed to the court, the deputy director for legal affairs of the Ministry of the Economy at the time.
In another letter dated December 13, 2021 addressed to Raymond Avrillier, the secretary general of the government Claire Landais writes: “After multiple searches, no report held by the State services between 2013 and 2015 and having been used in the development of amendments to motorway concession contracts have not been identified.
She nevertheless sent him “the joint report from the General Inspectorate of Finance and the General Council for the Environment and Sustainable Development submitted to the government in 2013 as part of the motorway recovery plan”.
In its conclusions addressed to the court in 2021, the services of the Ministry of Ecological Transition also justify their refusal to transmit an opinion from the Council of State in 2015 on the subject.
Asked by AFP, Bercy declared that "the accusations relayed by the newspaper Marianne are unfounded and slanderous", that "the State services have taken positions founded in law to respond to requests for communication of documents" and that “In no case do these positions constitute a forgery”.
An “alteration of the truth”
In his report, Raymond Avrillier maintains that "the officials in question are perfectly aware of the alteration of the truth because they know full well that documents and reports are held by the ministers to develop the memorandum of understanding of April 9, 2015."
He assures that there are at least three preparation notes, on the analysis of the date of the concessionary companies and on the profitability of the concessionaires' operations in particular, "the content of which is unknown because not communicated".
Work worth 3.2 billion euros
The privatization of motorways in 2006 allowed the State to pocket around fifteen billion euros.
The State justifies this decision to promote competition, optimize the network but also to reduce public debt.
Except that in 2013 and 2014, reports from the Court of Auditors, the Competition Authority and Parliament estimated that the profitability of concessionaires would be excessive and that the State would have failed in the execution of its missions of control.
With the consequence, price increases for users.
However, in 2015, the concessions were extended with a motorway recovery plan (PRA) between the State and the concessionaires.
The companies undertake to carry out work worth 3.2 billion euros on behalf of the State, in exchange for an extension of around three years of their concession.
At the helm of the PRA are Emmanuel Macron, then Minister of the Economy, and Ségolène Royal, Minister of the Environment, as well as their respective cabinet directors, Alexis Kohler and Élisabeth Borne, who later became secretary general of the Élysée and Prime Minister…