Embezzlement: Hubert Falco, his "fridge", his ham and his "friend of 30 years"

Sitting at the bar because of knee pain, Marc Giraud, 71, does not contest, before the criminal court of Marseille, the meals taken by Mr. Falco at noon at the cafeteria of the departmental council, "in full view of everyone".

"A bowl of rice, a slice of ham and a glass of water, he's not an epicurean," he said, recalling that elected officials have lunch for free in their community. "And I would have imagined it wasn't legal? I had been seeing him at the cafeteria for thirteen years," he continues, introducing himself as a "30-year-old friend" of Hubert Falco.

Opened Tuesday, the trial called "fridge of Falco", where the mayor of Toulon is accused of concealment of embezzlement of public funds for meals supposedly paid by the departmental council of the Var for three years - facts that he denies--, must end Friday.

In total, the cost of private meals served to Mr. Falco and his wife, on the budget of the department, would have amounted to at least 64,500 euros over the period concerned, between 2015 and 2018, according to the investigators.

Mayor of Toulon since 2001, Mr. Falco, 75, ex-LR now rallied to President Emmanuel Macron, had also led the department of Var, from 1994 to 2002. Then he remained the honorary president.

"What diversion did I do?" said Tuesday Marc Giraud, president of the department from 2015 to 2022, before having to give up his chair in 2022, after being convicted of embezzlement of public funds in a fictitious employment case.

"I knew nothing," repeated this former firefighter who fell into politics "by passion" in 1995. Thus, he would never have been informed of the rumors circulating on a fridge dedicated to dinners and weekend meals for Hubert Falco, nor of the assumption on the account of a public market of the expenses of pressing the mayor of Toulon.

"Liars!"

"Do you think the president should be concerned about a dry cleaning market?" he asked.

But the president of the court, Céline Ballerini, confronted the former elected official with several emails exchanged by his department directors on the assumption of the expenses of mouth of the mayor of Toulon.

"Everyone was aware in my hierarchy," wrote the deputy director of the events and support directorate. This official is one of three executives to have been sentenced in March 2022 for embezzlement of public funds, to a suspended fine of 10,000 euros, on prior recognition of his guilt.

The same official had also confirmed the assumption by the community of the costs of pressing the elected and his meals at noon, evening, weekends and holidays, ensuring not to have reported the facts for "fear of reprisals".

All "liars", replied Marc Giraud, who hammered to be "aware of nothing": "They never came knocking on my door. Radio silence!"

The court will hear Hubert Falco on Wednesday, before the hearing of the twenty witnesses called by his defense.

"For Hubert Falco, it is very hard to appear when you have been exemplary all his life," had pleaded Tuesday morning his lawyer, Thierry Fradet: "But there is also a relief, because we will finally be able to develop our arguments."

"A real organization has been set up, (...) it's obsessive, there are all the symptoms of Falcomania," the lawyer continued, referring in particular to the work of some journalists or a trade unionist from the departmental council.

© 2023 AFP