Mediapart accusations: French communist Fabien Roussel tries to answer
Fabien Roussel, candidate of the French Communist Party for the 2022 presidential election, presents his economic program at the premises of the employers' organization Medef, in Paris this Monday, February 21, 2022. AFP - ERIC PIERMONT
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
Questioned on Sunday by the Mediapart news site for his allegedly fictitious activity as a parliamentary assistant for five years, the Communist candidate for the French presidential election, Fabien Roussel, launched his counter-attack on Monday, February 21.
The communist candidate for the presidential election swears his innocence.
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With our special correspondent in Paris,
Aurélien Devernoix
“
I hear you have questions.
I will answer it.
“In the crowd of journalists welcoming him after his visit to the “grand oral” of the Medef, Fabien Roussel keeps smiling.
For the PCF candidate, the suspicions of fictitious employment raised by Mediapart are unfounded.
“
I am completely flabbergasted, since many of those with whom I worked during this period, Jean-Jacques Candelier, my colleagues;
all these will attest that we have worked a lot together
”, he assures.
But when the question of documents proving concrete work as a parliamentary assistant to former deputy Jean-Jacques Candelier is asked, Fabien Roussel eludes: “
Mediapart asks me to return my office at a time when I am in the middle of an election campaign.
If you have your text messages from ten years ago, champ!
»
No email either … Fabien Roussel assures him, his role was that of a political adviser and rather by telephone.
A convincing argument, according to François Bayrou, boss of the centrist Modem party, questioned on France 2: "
It is absolutely normal that a deputy doing politics, his assistant also helps to do politics
", he believes. .
Not sure, however, that Fabien Roussel particularly appreciates this support: François Bayrou is himself suspected by the courts of having unduly made parliamentary assistants work on behalf of his party.
►To re-read: Fabien Roussel, a "ghost parliamentary assistant", according to Mediapart
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