Paris (AFP)
The vice-president of MoDem Marielle de Sarnez was indicted Wednesday for "embezzlement of public funds" in the investigation of the allegedly fictitious jobs of assistants of MEPs of the centrist party, learned AFP from source close to the record .
After more than ten hours of hearing at the Paris court, Ms. de Sarnez was indicted for the contract of a former assistant, according to a source familiar with the case.
Regarding the contracts of five other assistants examined by the judges, it was instead placed under the intermediate status of assisted witness, according to this source.
"The procedure now gives him the means to intervene actively in the investigation," reacted to AFP his lawyers, Pierre Casanova, Christophe Ingrain and Paul Mallet. "Marielle de Sarnez will demonstrate that the offense with which she is charged is unfounded," they added.
Since November 15, several figures of the MoDem, including the former MEP and current Deputy Governor of the Bank of France Sylvie Goulard, the former Minister of Justice Michel Mercier or the financial director of the centrist party Alexandre Nardella, have already have been indicted in this case.
MoDem chairman François Bayrou is summoned Friday.
The judges are trying to determine whether parliamentary associates were paid by European Parliament funds when in fact they were assigned to other tasks for the centrist party.
The opening of a preliminary investigation by the Paris prosecutor's office in June 2017 led to the resignation of Bayrou from the post of Minister of Justice, as well as those of Marielle de Sarnez from the post of Minister of European Affairs and of Sylvie Goulard as Minister of the Armed Forces.
Marielle de Sarnez, who was elected to the European Parliament from 1999 to 2017, was questioned by several protagonists of the case, including one of her former assistants, Karine Aouadj, who claims to have never really performed tasks related to the European Parliament and have rather been his personal assistant.
The MoDem is not the only political formation in the lens of justice for supposedly fictitious jobs in the European Parliament. Similar investigations have thus been opened for the insubordinate France (LFI) and for the National Front (FN). In the latter, about twenty people, including Marine Le Pen, have been indicted.
© 2019 AFP