In the News: a hint of Mi'kmaq in the Fillon case

Audio 05:09

By: Norbert Navarro

Publicity

It is a case in a case, that of the pressures exerted in "  the Fillon case  ". For opinion, Emmanuel Macron seizes the Superior council of the magistrature, after the polemical remarks of the former prosecutor of the National financial parquet Éliane Houlette. The French President expects the Superior Council of the Magistrature to verify whether the National Financial Prosecutor's Office "  was able to carry out its activity in all serenity, without pressure  ", during its investigation in the Fillon case.

It all started three days ago with an article in the weekly Le Point which raised this politico-judicial storm.

Which storm is pinned this morning on the front page of Le Figaro. Close to the right in France, this daily denounces "  in the headlines  " the said "  pressures" in the Fillon case  ", suffered by the former prosecutor Eliane Houlette when she was investigating the said case, in the middle of the electoral campaign, before the candidate for right François Fillon is promptly indicted and then eliminated in the first round of the 2017 presidential election.

A storm indeed because, in an interview with the weekly Marianne a year ago, the same Eliane Houlette declared that she had "  never been under any pressure. Neither received any instructions  ”. Since then, this prosecutor has retired.

So ? So, nine days before the judgment in the Fillon case, Le Figaro , this morning, is looking into the "  shock wave  " of this case in the case.

As Le Point magazine notes , during his hearing on June 10 by the National Assembly's commission of inquiry on "  the independence of the judiciary  ", Eliane Houlette said that she had been under "  pressure from the public prosecutor's office  " , in the form of "  very pressing requests for feedback  ".

"  The worm is in the fruit  ", says Le Figaro , the procedure in the Fillon case is "  now rotten from the inside  ".

In the summary that he publishes of this "  storm  ", the daily Le Parisien specifies that the said "  pressures  " admitted under oath by the former prosecutor of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office emanated from his hierarchical superior, Catherine Champrenault, who is "  still attorney general of the Paris Court of Appeal  ”, underlines this newspaper.

Eliane Houlette, yesterday, may have said that those who "  exploit  " his words "  in this sense distort them  " and that they are showing "  bad faith  ", Me Antonin Lévy, lawyer for the former Prime Minister, pushes the highlight in Le Figaro this morning by declaring that the investigation which targeted François Fillon, as well as his wife, "  did not follow a normal course  " and that his client "  was the subject of a treatment of disadvantage  " . And Me Lévy affirms that, in the Fillon case, the public prosecutor's office "  pulls the strings from the start  ".

The mass grave of Paris-Descartes

New in the scandal of the Center for the donation of bodies from Paris-Descartes University (bodies intended for anatomy lessons). The Igas, the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs, has released its report. Pending the conclusions of the preliminary investigation of justice, still in progress. The newspaper Liberation unveils this Saturday morning the summary of this report from the Igas. Published on June 13, this report "   points to the direct responsibility of Paris-Descartes University  " in the case of the center for body donation of this university, "    Parisian temple of anatomy, formulates this daily.

Being recalled that this scandal was revealed by the weekly L'Express on November 26, 2019, and that we then reported the essentials in the press review of the weeklies and magazine, on Sunday morning on RFI, we will summarize that at main features, L'Express brought to light the existence of a real "  mass grave  " in this center where the bodies intended for dissection for the training needs of doctors were piled up pell-mell, often dismembered like a puzzle, rats and mice while eating their meals, without the putrefactive state of these stinky people cutting their appetite, when they were simply not used in the automobile industry during  crash tests  , you know, these accidents of car in workshop, and during which the effects of shocks on the human body are observed. We have already talked about that. Let's move on.

Liberation met rebellious families whose relatives had donated their bodies to science. 72 of them have indeed gone to court. This newspaper also reports that Frédéric Dardel, president of Paris-Descartes from 2011 to 2019, was dismissed from his duties as special adviser to the Minister of Higher Education "  the day before  " the publication of the Igas report.

In any case, the advanced state of disrepair of this anatomy center was not the result of a lack of means. Liberation even reveals that the CDC was making money, one million eight hundred thousand euros "  for the benefit of the university between 2013 and 2016  ", not counting donations.

And this newspaper wonders how it was possible "  to scorn the generosity of the donation made by the dead of time during his lifetime to advance medical or scientific research?" How can we disdain the suffering of families with such cynicism?  Asks Liberation . A real macabre dance…

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• Newspaper
• François Fillon
• Justice