He is the one who has carried the pension reform since this fall.

The Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, suspected of "favoritism", received the support of the head of government, . 

Whoever must defend the text Tuesday, February 6 before the National Assembly, “has the full confidence of the Prime Minister”, indicated Matignon.

Asked, the Elysée did not comment, believing that everything had been said in the reaction of Elisabeth Borne.

According to Mediapart's revelations on Friday, the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) has retained the offense of "favoritism" for a future trial against Olivier Dussopt, which will relate to a public contract concluded at the end of the 2000s with Saur group.

The investigation had started with two lithographs by the painter Gérard Garouste, which had been offered to him by a local Saur manager in 2017. He then returned the paintings.

"In May 2020, a press article believed it could question my relationship with a water group in the town of Annonay, of which I was the mayor" and "the financial prosecutor's office opened an investigation and carried out very many checks", reported the minister on Saturday on France Inter. 

"There was no arrangement": suspected of "favoritism", Olivier Dussopt defends himself


➡️ https://t.co/LU2MztZSB2 pic.twitter.com/hScNfRCKdc

– France Inter (@franceinter) February 4, 2023

"At the end of this investigative work, the prosecution had grouped the facts into five points and I note that the explanations given with my lawyer convinced the prosecution of my good faith since on four of these five points, the prosecution decided that it was necessary" to classify them, without "prosecution for corruption, taking of interest or enrichment", he added.

But "the prosecution considers that in the context of a procedure for public procurement in 2009 (...), there could be an offense of favoritism", "a thesis which I dispute", hammered the minister.

According to Mediapart, the search carried out at the minister's premises by financial investigators from the Central Office for the Fight against Financial and Tax Offenses (Oclciff) revealed "exchanges between Olivier Dussopt and (the Saur) seeming to leave little doubts about the existence of an arrangement around a public market dated 2009-2010", when he was deputy and socialist mayor of this commune of Ardèche.

"Borne has no choice" 

Olivier Dussopt claims to have "only one wish": "Continue to convince and explain how things happened to convince of (s)a good faith".

Still, this case comes at the worst time for the government: the pension marathon starts in Parliament and two new days of mobilization are scheduled by the inter-union, next Tuesday and Saturday, against the decline in the retirement age from 62 to 64 years old.

"Olivier Dussopt will have favored someone in his life," tackled the rebellious Hadrien Clouet on Twitter.

But "no favoritism for France which works hard", underlined the communist deputy Sébastien Jumel. 

Olivier Dussopt is "guilty" of having "favored the most unfair responses, those which will penalize the greatest number of our fellow citizens", supported the socialist Jérôme Guedj on France 2 on Saturday. 

Can he stay on?

Elisabeth Borne "doesn't have much choice because it would weaken this reform a little more", according to this deputy, who thinks that Olivier Dussopt "is not going to have the mind completely available to defend, badly, the reform".

At the heart of the government system, he is also at the helm, with the Minister of the Interior, on the immigration bill, and in the coming months at the forefront on a bill dedicated to full employment.

Olivier Dussopt is not the only minister to find himself in turmoil in the midst of pension reform.

Before him, Éric Woerth had been splashed by the Bettencourt affair in 2010, when the legal age was postponed from 62 to 64 years old.

The ex-LR then obtained a release.

At the time of the reform project for Macron's first five-year term, the High Commissioner for Pensions, Jean-Paul Delevoye, had resigned in December 2019 for not having declared several mandates to the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life (HATVP).

He was sentenced in December 2021 to a four-month suspended prison sentence and a 15,000 euro fine. 

With AFP

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