Political earthquake in the Var: Hubert Falco removed from his mandates by the justice

The elected representative, former member of the party The Republicans, rallied to Emmanuel Macron, was sentenced by the criminal court of Marseille to three years of suspended imprisonment, the confiscation of 55,000 euros that had been seized on his account and a sentence of ineligibility of five years with provisional execution, that is to say applicable immediately, even in case of appeal.

Aged 75, the strong man of the Var falls on a case of meals and pressing settled, illegally according to justice, on public funds of the departmental council.

Hubert Falco left the court head down, without a word. It is a real earthquake for Toulon where he had been re-elected three times in the first round and where he presented himself as a bulwark to the National Rally, from which he had taken the city in 2001.

In a long motivation of which she is customary, the president Céline Ballerini estimated that when he came to lunch for free at the cafeteria of the departmental council of the Var, while he was no longer president, he had "obviously benefited from a service that was not due to (him)".

As for the evening meals that were prepared for him and his wife and stored in a special refrigerator - hence the name of the "Falco fridge" affair - at the expense of the taxpayer.

"Customs"

In total, these private meals served to Hubert Falco and his wife, an employee of the departmental council, would have cost the taxpayer at least 64,500 euros between 2015 and 2018, according to investigators.

The facts had been revealed by a former kitchen manager, who committed suicide during the investigation, and then confirmed by others, including a director of services.

The mayor of Toulon, Hubert Falco (R), and his lawyer Thierry Fradet, arrive at the criminal court of Marseille, April 12, 2023 © Christophe SIMON / AFP

On the costs of pressing that the couple Falco also paid, "why make the departmental council assume such laughable sums?", wondered the president of the court.

Probably, because "you have perpetuated customs that you had taken before".

In the audience, Hubert Falco's wife and close guard seemed dejected.

"We heard witnesses say that you were an excellent mayor, that you had done a lot," Ballerini said.

"Smallness"

"But the question is not there," she added, because the facts, "by their smallness", show "an obvious lack of respect" for the institutions and show that "the departmental council remained your territory".

The prosecutor, who had made requisitions in accordance with the sentences imposed, had described the case as a "real scandal".

Before the court left to deliberate, Hubert Falco said he was "hurt" at the prospect of having his mandates taken away. To imagine no longer being able to "participate in the life of my city, my country, it is the worst sentence for me," he added.

It is "not at all the case of the century", had tried his lawyer Thierry Fradet, castigating this "wind of the North" which brings from Northern Europe a model of probity "not necessarily adapted to our mores".

Marc Giraud, former president of the departmental council, was sentenced for embezzlement of public funds to two years of suspended imprisonment, a fine of 15,000 euros and five years of ineligibility. He had already been forced to give up his chair in 2022, after another conviction for embezzlement of public funds.

The lawyer of the anti-corruption association Anticor and the departmental union Unsa of the territorial of the Var were civil parties, but the departmental council "had not seen fit to be a civil party", also noted the president while he could have hoped to recover the sums at stake.

"It is a scandalous error" that the department has not been a civil party, said for his part in Var-Matin the municipal councillor of opposition Cécile Muschotti.

The president of the regional council of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Renaud Muselier, of the same political side as Hubert Falco, as well as the mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi, testified in a joint statement of "all (their) friendship and all (their) esteem" to this "great servant of Toulon" and "of the State".

The head of the RN in Toulon Amaury Navarranne for his part demanded "the convocation of voters for a new municipal election". Normally, the resignation of Hubert Falco will be recorded by an order of the prefect which will lead to the election of a new mayor within the municipal council.

© 2023 AFP