- François and Penelope Fillon are to be tried, from this Monday until March 11, for “embezzlement of public funds” and “abuse of social goods”.
- François Fillon is accused of having paid his wife as a parliamentary collaborator when she did not exercise real functions, according to the prosecution.
- The former Prime Minister will dispute the facts. If the evidence is lacking, he always assures that his wife was "his first and most important collaborator".
The cupboard housed four large files, each containing hundreds of pockets. Inside, invitations, intervention requests, letters, etc. 1,626 documents in total, listed in alphabetical order. On each one, at the top right: a handwritten note composed of a series of numbers and two letters: the date and the initials of the person who "processed" the mail.
On March 2017, investigators from the Central Office to Combat Corruption and Financial and Fiscal Offenses (Oclciff) are in François Fillon's office in the National Assembly. They know him well. They had already searched him a few weeks earlier. But they "neglected" the search, according to Penelope Fillon's lawyer. History not to lend the flank to criticism, they therefore agree to return.
The police conscientiously peel everything. Again and again. But they do not find any trace of "PF", the label which could have testified to the work of "Penny" with her deputy husband. No sooner did they get their hands on two speeches in English than she translated. Not in her capacity as "parliamentary collaborator", she recognizes. But "as an English woman" ...
François Fillon is no longer in conspiracy theory
Three years later, François and Penelope Fillon will appear before the 32nd chamber of the Paris judicial court from Monday, unless a 48-hour postponement due to the lawyers' strike. Accused of having paid his wife as a parliamentary assistant without her actually exercising any activity, the former Prime Minister faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of 1 million euros for "embezzlement of public funds ”. Just like his wife who appears, she, for "complicity". On the defendants' bench, they will be accompanied by Marc Joulaud, François Fillon's deputy, tried for having perpetuated the system when his "mentor" had become minister.
Without this affair, François Fillon would undoubtedly sleep at the Elysée today. But, stuck in the controversy, he had been eliminated in the first round of the presidential election. On the evening of his defeat, on April 23, 2017, he had denounced a political "conspiracy" of which he would deliver "proof when the time comes". Since then, someone must have informed him that the magistrates do not really appreciate that politics cross the door of their courtrooms. "I am going to disappoint you ... I am no longer in that today ...", he confessed when he returned to the media in the show Vous Vous la parole , on France 2, on January 31st.
"I must have made mistakes, but there is one thing I cannot bear, that is that I think I am dishonest": listen to the concluding word of @FrancoisFillon on the set of #VALP pic .twitter.com / 2jMn1Cmzbu
- You have the floor (@VALP) January 30, 2020Press reviews, notebooks and "little words in hand"
No, the former elected Sarthois reconverted in finance will, it seems, opt for a much more classic and frontal defense. He will dispute the facts and try to demonstrate to the court that his wife was indeed "his first and most important collaborator". That she worked to "manage [his] agenda, [his] parliamentary mail and to supervise or correct speeches", as he hammered on France 2. Except that the evidence is lacking…
The press reviews she was preparing? Her husband "threw them away after reading them." Notes for speeches? They were written on loose sheets. The register of visitors to the Beaucé family manor? In notebooks that she did not keep. Answers to letters? "Little words in hand" which we have not found, according to another collaborator.
The opponent never met Penelope at the town hall
There is no reason not to believe these explanations. Except that for the judges who ordered the referral of the couple to court, they do not fit well with the "systematic, exhaustive and rigorous" propensity of the Fillon to archive the smallest piece of paper. In the manor and adjoining chapel of Fillon in Solesmes (Sarthe), the police discovered hundreds of boxes and boxes containing everything and anything: proof of a subscription to the 1988 Good Bookguide , receipts from 1991 and requests for intervention addressed to François Fillon to obtain a place there in a college, there, social housing ... But Penelope's work? Little or no trace.
This is not surprising, for Gérard Fretellière. A local political opponent since 1981, he has been a keen observer of the life of the constituency where François Fillon was elected. When investigators interviewed him, he said he had never met Penelope Fillon at the town hall of Solesmes in 35 years. "I never imagined that she was paid to do what all the spouses of elected officials do," he simply commented.
Our file on the Fillon trial
Civil party to the trial, the National Assembly has already done the accounts. By adding the employers' contributions to the salaries that Penelope would have unduly affected, the Palais-Bourbon intends to claim precisely 1,081,219.59 euros in damages during the trial. It should last until March 11.
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Justice
The National Assembly will claim more than 1 million euros in damages at the Fillon trial
Justice
Three years after his indictment, François Fillon remains on the same line of defense
- Fillon trial
- Penelope Fillon
- Justice
- François Fillon
- National Assembly
- Conspiracy theory