MoDem president and former justice minister François Bayrou was indicted on Friday (December 6th) for "complicity in embezzlement of public funds" in the case of allegedly fictitious jobs of MEPs from his centrist party, according to AFP and Reuters.
"This indictment, announced in advance in the newspapers, was decided against all the evidence produced," reacted to AFP Me Pierre Cornut-Gentille, lawyer Bayrou. "The continuation of the instruction will show that it is totally unfounded".
This case precipitated the resignation, in June 2017, of this weighty ally Emmanuel Macron of the Ministry of Justice, but also those of Marielle de Sarnez, briefly Minister of European Affairs, and Sylvie Goulard, then the Armies.
These last two are also indicted, as well as another former Minister of Justice, Michel Mercier.
The MoDem is suspected, like the National Rally and the melenchonist party La France Insoumise, of having set up a fraudulent system allowing it to reward employees with funds from the European Parliament by passing them off as assistants of MEPs.
With AFP and Reuters