The Criminal Court of Marseille should render its judgment around 17:00.

Strong man of Var politics for 30 years, this ex-LR now rallied to Emmanuel Macron, is accused of having continued to have lunch in the cafeteria of the Departmental Council when he was no longer president, and of having benefited from meals at home and dry cleaning fees, also paid by the community.

In total, these private meals served to Mr. Falco and his wife from public funds would have amounted to at least 64,500 euros between 2015 and 2018, according to investigators.

The meals were stored in a dedicated refrigerator that gave its name to the file: "Falco's fridge".

Addressing the court one last time, the 75-year-old said how "critical" the stakes were for him. The day before, he had not hidden his despondency after the requisitions of the prosecutor who asked for three years of suspended prison, a loss of civil rights and therefore ineligibility for five years, with provisional execution, that is to say with immediate effect.

"I am hurt" at the prospect of "immediately taking away what my constituents have entrusted to me," he retorted. To imagine no longer being able to "participate in the life of my city, my country, it is the worst sentence for me".

"It is 40 years of a life that are at stake" here, supported his lawyer who asked for the release, judging that it was "not at all the case of the century".

Mr. Falco was having lunch in the department's cafeteria when he was no longer working there? "There was a use" that has always existed, says Thierry Fradet.

On the laundry of the elected, which would have been washed at the dry cleaner at the expense of the taxpayer: he asks for the release because there is "no mention of Hubert Falco on the notes", according to him.

Echoing the words of the prosecutor who stressed the day before that "a misappropriated euro is a euro that does not go to the public interest", Mr. Fradet on the contrary denounced a form of "wind of the North" because for him the model of probity that comes from Northern Europe "is not necessarily adapted to our mores".

Mayor of Toulon for more than 20 years and president of the metropolis of Toulon, Hubert Falco, had led the Var department from 1994 to 2002.

© 2023 AFP