“These were not local but national initiatives (…) with a whole series of [targeted] stores and the general management was well involved”, underlined the Advocate General Henri Génin during his requisitions before the Court of Appeal. of Versailles, sweeping aside the thesis of "the work of a single man".

It is this hypothesis that was put forward on Thursday by several of the defendants to clear themselves of their responsibility in this case which had caused a stir in 2012, after the revelations of Le Canard enchaîné, then in 2021 during the trial at first instance.

Thursday at the helm, the former CEO of the French subsidiary of the furniture giant Jean-Louis Baillot fully blamed this illegal and generalized surveillance system on his former director of risk management Jean-François Paris.

"We don't know. We don't know", what Mr. Paris is then plotting, he had repeated.

"Once the instructions have been given, in a hushed and discreet manner, the management withdraws on tiptoe and does not want to know anything more", rephrased the Advocate General on Friday.

In March 2021, Jean-François Paris had admitted at trial at first instance to having sent lists of employees “to be tested” to Jean-Pierre Fourès, the former director of the private investigation company Eirpace and ex-police officer of General Intelligence. .

Hundreds of employees, between 2009 and 2012, had thus been scrutinized, their heritage, private life and judicial history scrupulously peeled: "mass checks", had confessed Mr. Paris.

-"Troubling coincidences"-

The Advocate General requested confirmation of the sentences pronounced at first instance for MM.

Baillot and Fourès, for which he requested two years in prison suspended and a fine of 20,000 euros.

The latter has always denied having asked former colleagues to consult the System for processing recorded offenses (STIC) to extract the criminal records of employees.

But "52 consultations" concerning employees of the Reims store from Mayotte by an ex-comrade is "a more than disturbing coincidence", mocked the Advocate General, recalling elements of the investigation.

“Weird things +, I don’t call that a legal demonstration,” retorted the advice of former police officer Marc François, stressing that the criminal records of employees could be checked in the STIC for different reasons.

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For the former administrative and financial director Dariusz Rychert, who countersigned part of Eirpace's invoices, "there is a doubt", admitted the Advocate General, who requested the release because he was "put before the accomplished fact".

Against Richard Jimenez, store manager suspected of having sent lists of employees, the representative of the prosecution requested eight months in prison suspended and a fine of 5,000 euros, arguing that he could only ignore these intrusions into private life. were illegal.

His lawyer Eric Raffin decreed that his client had "simply carried out an instruction" from management.

The company Ikea France is represented in this appeal trial: it is not re-tried in criminal proceedings but only a respondent, four civil parties having appealed for compensation, including the FO Val d'Oise union which requested two million euros for the damage suffered, via his lawyer Vincent Lecourt.

"It's not serious," said Ikea France lawyer Emmanuel Daoud, recalling that the company "did not sit idly by" but had notably set up a legal department following the scandal. and reactivated its ethics committee, among other measures.

Defense arguments continue Wednesday.

© 2022 AFP