"The custody is lifted. The investigations of the judicial police will continue with the use of the seized documents and the hearing of witnesses", told AFP the public prosecutor of Angers Éric Bouillard.

In addition to the mayor of Cholet, the director general of services and the deputy director general were also placed in police custody on Tuesday morning.

The town hall of Cholet, which had been searched for the first time on August 18, was searched a second time on Tuesday, according to the same source.

Three preliminary investigations, entrusted to the Angers judicial police, were opened in 2021 concerning the town hall of Cholet for concussion, illegal taking of interest, breaches of regulations on weapons and forgery and use of forgery.

Police custody and search are part of the investigation for "embezzlement and embezzlement of public funds (and complicity in these offenses), initiated in June 2021 by the Angers prosecution following the complaint by the Anticor association, "the prosecutor said in a statement Tuesday.

The association had drafted a complaint "to denounce the calculation of compensation for elected officials of the city of Cholet and the exceeding of the maximum envelope" and, according to Anticor's calculations, "the overpayment amounts to more than 900,000 euros ", adds the prosecution.

Questioned by AFP, the prosecutor had specified that he could go back, within the framework of the investigation, only six years before the complaint, that is to June 2015. The calculations of Anticor, which go back to them until ' to 2008, report an overpayment of 2.5 million euros.

Two other investigations were launched in the first quarter of 2021. A first for the irregular use of weapons during a period in the municipal police of Cholet and a second for a call for tenders concerning the village hall of Cholet, in 2020, had indicated the Angers prosecutor's office to AFP.

Gilles Bourdouleix, 61, has been mayor of Cholet (53,000 inhabitants) since 1995 and president of the agglomeration of Choletais.

He was elected deputy three times, from 2002 to 2017.

© 2022 AFP