Paris (AFP)

The lawyer and ex-Minister of the Environment Corinne Lepage is about to file a complaint against François Bayrou for "slanderous denunciation", on the sidelines of the case of the assistants of MEPs MoDem, she said on Sunday 'AFP, confirming information from the JDD.

Joined by AFP, the entourage of Mr. Bayrou denounces "a media communication blow" and an unfounded complaint, the remarks denounced by Ms. Lepage having been kept confidential before the investigators as part of the rights of defense.

Heard in September by the police on this case of assistants, the president of the MoDem accused Ms. Lepage of having tried to "swindle" the mayors of the Breton communes affected by the oil spill of the Amoco Cadiz in 1978.

However "court decisions show the opposite. He imputes slanderous facts to me when I am a woman of total probity", replies Ms. Lepage.

In 1996, the Versailles Court of Appeal had ordered him to reimburse 4.8 million francs in fees to the Breton municipalities, but Ms. Lepage had finally succeeded.

The personal conflict between these two politicians and former allies is at the heart of the case of the assistants of MEPs from the MoDem, which means that Mr Bayrou was indicted in early December in Paris for "complicity in embezzlement of public funds ".

Corinne Lepage, a former MEP who has broken with MoDem, said in a book in 2014 that the party "demanded" her to make one of her European parliamentary assistants available to the centrist party, which she had refused and what that the MoDem denies.

Key witness to the prosecution in this case, she reiterated these words in June 2017 and June 2019 before the investigators, still looking for the document she claims to have refused to sign.

In defense of the MoDem, the only commitment made by Mrs. Lepage, and respected for two years until their rupture, was that of contributing to the endowment of the French delegation of the European centrist party, the ALDE.

Asked in September about their contradictory versions, Mr. Bayrou put forward their personal conflict, mentioning in particular the litigation of fees which was born between the lawyer and Breton mayors close to him.

Several MoDem members interviewed by the investigators explained that this litigation had thwarted Ms. Lepage's wish to run for the 2009 Europeans in the West. She had finally been a candidate and elected in the northern constituencies.

© 2019 AFP