Paris (AFP)
Provisional epilogue of the case which derailed his presidential campaign in 2017, former Prime Minister François Fillon was sentenced Monday in Paris to two years in prison and a heavy fine in the case of the fictitious jobs of his marries Penelope.
The lawyers for the Fillon couple, who had pleaded for release during the trial in February-March, immediately announced their intention to appeal.
The Paris Criminal Court ruled that Ms. Fillon's jobs as parliamentary assistant to her husband and his deputy, Marc Joulaud, and most of the jobs of Fillon children's assistants to their father senator were fictitious.
The magistrates pointed to the "failures" of the former Prime Minister and former parliamentarian in his duties of "probity" and "exemplarity". Recognized guilty of embezzlement of public funds and complicity, and complicity and concealment of abuse of social goods, he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, including two years, 375,000 euros fine and ten years of ineligibility.
This sentence is not suitable, but in the absence of a warrant, Mr. Fillon, retired from politics and converted into finance, will remain free until his appeal trial.
By making "prevail his personal interest over the common interest" with the aim of "personal enrichment", Mr. Fillon, 66 years old, "contributed to erode the confidence" of the citizens, underlined the president of the court Nathalie Gavarino.
His wife Penelope Fillon, who had notably signed three parliamentary assistant contracts with her deputy husband and his deputy in Sarthe, Marc Joulaud, between 1998 and 2013, was sentenced to three years suspended prison, 375,000 euros fine and two years of ineligibility - she has just been re-elected city councilor of her commune, Solesmes.
For the court, his contracts had "no consistency" and met "no need".
Marc Joulaud, outgoing mayor of Sablé-sur-Sarthe, beaten on Sunday evening in the municipal elections but elected to the municipal council, was meanwhile sentenced to three years suspended imprisonment, a 20,000 euro suspended fine and five years ineligibility.
- One million euros for the Assembly -
In total, public funds from the Assembly and the Senate diverted under the contracts of Ms. Fillon and the couple's children amount, according to the court, to nearly 1,156,000 euros.
Only the assembly was made civil party. The defendants are ordered to pay him more than one million euros in damages, in reimbursement of the sums received.
Until early afternoon, uncertainty had reigned over the rendering of this judgment due to a request to reopen the defense proceedings. She hoped to bounce back on recent statements by the former head of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) who recently reported "procedural pressures" from his hierarchy during the investigation.
The court very briefly mentioned these requests but tacitly rejected them.
The Fillon, arrived masked in accordance with the health protocol, did not comment at the end of the hearing.
"Naturally, this decision, which is not fair, will be appealed," reacted François Fillon's lawyer, Antonin Lévy.
"There will be a new trial, it is all the more necessary since, for the past few days, we have finally started to understand what we sense since 2017, the bleak conditions in which this investigation was launched, the scandalous conditions in which this investigation was opened, the surprising conditions under which the investigations were then conducted, "he said.
What Ms. Houlette describes, in particular pressing requests for feedback, is not illegal but has rekindled accusations of instrumentalization of justice in the Fillon clan and led Emmanuel Macron to seize the Superior Council for the judiciary.
The defense, which denounces for three years an investigation "against" carried out in the middle of the presidential campaign, hoped that the court awaits the opinion of the CSM and the end of the parliamentary commission of inquiry on the independence of justice, before which said Mrs. Houlette, to discuss and rule on it.
Given favorite to the presidential, François Fillon, cantor of the conservative right, had finally been eliminated in the first round after a campaign undermined by this affair that had revealed the Canard Enchaîné.
© 2020 AFP