The queen of the press people, Michèle Marchand, her real name, was remanded in custody between mid-June and mid-July for having violated her judicial review.

She was indicted in early June for "witness tampering" in the investigation into the temporary retraction through Ziad Takieddine of accusations against Nicolas Sarkozy, which fueled the investigation into suspicion of Libyan financing of the campaign of the last.

The judges suspect that this retraction had counterparts.

On July 29, eight days after "Mimi" was released from detention, Oclciff investigators intercepted a ten-minute call with a third party on a phone belonging to her.

At the end of the line, Brigitte Macron asks about her detention the boss of the paparazzi agency Bestimage, to which she is notoriously close: "How did you hold out? (...). It's abominable".

Mimi Marchand replies that she has been placed in detention to "crack" her.

Without success according to her: "I cannot tell them things that do not exist (...). I am an epi-phenomenon in this story".

"You have to (...) hold on", replies Brigitte Macron.

Later in the conversation, she criticizes the incarceration of Mimi Marchand: "We can't put people in prison like that. Well, I don't understand (...). It's reserved for dangerous people".

According to her entourage at AFP, Brigitte Macron wanted "to comfort someone who has just spent a month in detention", in an "unusual conversation" given its protagonists "but quite banal".

"A private conversation between two friends, taken out of context," said Me Caroline Toby, lawyer for "Mimi" Marchand.

The First Lady also says she recently had lunch with Carla Bruni.

"We said it's disgusting," she continues, possibly referring to the detention of "Mimi" or the legal cases targeting Nicolas Sarkozy.

Further, in an exchange on a relentlessness of the judges which would target Nicolas Sarkozy, the wife of the guarantor of the independence of the judicial authority declares: "It was terrible (...). I do not even know how he holds ".

Michèle "Mimi" Marchand in Le Touquet in Pas-de-Calais, April 22, 2017 Eric Feferberg AFP / Archives

"She talks about the situation of the Sarkozy couple" at this time, supports the entourage of Brigitte Macron.

Finally, she offers Mimi Marchand the support of her security chief in the event of "trouble".

"She tells him that she can go through him if she has messages to pass", comments the entourage of the First Lady.

"She said to him + Go through him if you need to. + Where is the harm?"

asked the lawyer for "Mimi" Marchand.

© 2021 AFP