The affair broke out in 2017 after the election of Laurent Wauquiez as head of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and the completion of an IT audit.
On Friday, the former director of computer services for the community, who worked for the previous majority, will be tried before the Lyon criminal court for espionage.
The person concerned, who claims to have acted on the orders of his manager, will be the only one to appear.
His superior, the former director general of services, was ultimately not prosecuted at the end of the investigation.
“Total access” to professional mailboxes
He is accused of having consulted, without authorization, the professional mailboxes of elected councilors and agents working there in order to unmask a mole.
Namely the anonymous person who would have informed the newspaper
Les Potins d'Angèle
, in the middle of the election period.
The surveillance lasted two years, from 2015 to 2017. The South union was the first to realize this when it discovered that this official had "discreetly granted himself full access" to his email.
The organization then alerted the departments concerned to initiate an internal investigation, which then led to the IT audit.
Socialist Jean-Jack Queyranne, who chaired the Region at the time, denied knowing about the system.
He was not prosecuted.
Lyons
Complaint in sight after suspicions of computer espionage in the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region
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