"I appear before you tonight as a whitened man, cleared of all the accusations that have been made against me," said France 2 the former Minister and President of the National Assembly François de Rugy. Accused of excessive spending, the former minister was on the whole cleared Tuesday, July 23 by investigations of work in his company housing and glitzy dinners.

"I never doubted for a moment that I could prove my honesty," he added. The investigation, however, revealed three meals at the Lassay Hotel of "obviously excessive level".

A week after his resignation, the former minister, in the process of becoming a member for Loire-Atlantique, did not mince his words against the online investigation journal Mediapart, causing his mis en cause . "There would never have been a case of Rugy and today it is sure, there is a case Mediapart", he said.

"It needed another word"

"I believe in the virtues of investigative journalism for democracy ... And then there is demolition journalism, and that's what Mediapart practices," he said. "We do not grab a subject, but we take a target and the target, we sift with arrows.And we try that one day the arrow goes through the murderer and reaches the target." "The Republic of defamation is not the Republic," continued François de Rugy, who said he had lodged a complaint against the site of investigation.

By resigning, he considers that he "made the collective interest prevail rather than his (his) personal interest". And he reminded himself that he had asked for the inquiries "because I could see that it was not possible for me to defend myself" and "I needed another word".

With respect to his membership dues paid to the EELV party when he was a member, using his non-taxed MP office fees, he felt it was "just a cash flow issue" that did not matter. had "had no consequences, from a legal point of view, nor from a moral point of view, nor from a fiscal point of view". He reiterated that he would abide by the conclusions of the Assembly and Government reports "even though there have been no broken rules".

Asked whether he would return to the government, François de Rugy replied that it was up to the president to appoint ministers, but that his commitment "for ecology, for the Republic, for France" would "continue".

With AFP