Investigations into suspicions of conflicts of interest surrounding the secretary general of the Elysee Palace, Alexis Kohler, are continuing.

Friday morning, Julien Denormandie, was heard at the Paris judicial court as a witness in this case by the investigating judges, said a judicial source, confirming information from

Figaro

.

The Minister of Agriculture was Alexis Kohler's deputy when the latter was director of Emmanuel Macron's cabinet at the Ministry of the Economy and Finance (2014-2016).

Since June 2020, a judicial investigation, opened for "illegal taking of interests", "influence peddling" and "failure to report to the High Authority for the transparency of public life", is interested in the links between the shipowner MSC and Alexis Kohler, a close friend of Emmanuel Macron.

Mediapart had noted the family and professional ties between Alexis Kohler, then right-hand man of the Elysee and passed through Bercy, and the Italian-Swiss shipowner MSC, founded and managed by his mother's cousins, the Aponte family.

A first investigation opened in 2018

MSC is a major client of STX France (now renamed Chantiers de l'Atlantique) which manages the Saint-Nazaire shipyards.

A first investigation was opened on June 4, 2018 by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) after several Anticor complaints, and entrusted to the Economic Crime Repression Brigade (BRDE).

A dozen people, including Alexis Kohler, had been heard.

The BRDE has successively drawn up two contradictory reports.

In the first, dated June 7, 2019, it is written that Alexis Kohler had "(taken) no measures to organize a formal deport" so as not to intervene on issues related to MSC when he was working for Minister Pierre Moscovici , and then as Emmanuel Macron's chief of staff.

Macron personally stood up for Kohler

In the second report, dated July 18, 2019 and shorter, the same investigator concluded that Alexis Kohler had indeed organized deportations when he was at Bercy.

The Head of State had personally defended his right arm: in a note dated July 1, 2019 and paid to the procedure, Emmanuel Macron writes that Alexis Kohler had never intervened, when he was his chief of staff at Bercy, in cases related to MSC.

The revelation of this note had sparked a lively controversy, the opposition accusing the executive of attempting to the separation of powers and of wanting to influence the course of an investigation.

The following month, the PNF dismissed the investigation.

But Anticor had then filed a complaint with the constitution of civil party on December 4, 2019, thus relaunching the investigations.

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  • Emmanuel Macron

  • Corruption

  • Conflict of interest

  • Julien Denormandie

  • Investigation

  • Justice