“There I was, burned.” Ironically, rebel deputy Louis Boyard decided to respond in a short video published this Tuesday, October 21, to the controversy surrounding his watch.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have a Rolex, I have this watch, it costs 295 euros. My friends gave it to me when I turned 25. Thank you all. I wear it in many videos, just before interviews or sets, while I talk with my hands, I can hit tables or other things, I have acquired the habit of taking it off,” he explains.
Extract from a duplex during censorship review.
For several days, an excerpt from a BFMTV program filmed on the day of the examination of the motions of censure in the National Assembly, last October 16, has been circulating on social networks. In the images that have gone viral, our journalists Amandine Atalaya and Guillaume Daret finish their interview with the RN deputy Laurent Jacobelli in the Quatres Colonnes Room. The rebel deputy prepares in the background to be interviewed, removes a gold watch from his wrist and puts it in his pocket.
This cut sequence was later widely disseminated, generally associated with messages denouncing the “hypocrisy” of an elected official who attacked “the ultra-rich” by hiding the possession of a very valuable object. LFI’s political opponents seized the clip. The rumor even made noise internationally, as President Mileil even shared it on his X account.
A disinformation campaign
Despite the relaxation with which he makes his explanatory video, Louis Boyard does not take the issue lightly and places this sequence in “a misinformation campaign” that, according to him, is directed at him and La France insumisa.
“I don’t know what else to add except that it is one more misinformation (…) they are the same misinformation networks that at the beginning of September made it believe that there were problems in my campaign accounts even though they had all been validated,” he continued.
He also drew a parallel with the campaign suffered by LFI deputy Carlos Martens Bilongo over accusations of tax fraud that were ultimately dismissed. In an investigation published this Monday, L’Informé reveals that Tracfin, Bercy’s financial intelligence unit, is suspected of having sent a falsified note to the courts to put the elected official of Val-d’Oise in trouble.
“For La France Insoumise it is a daily thing to have to face disinformation campaigns on an international scale because who launches them? They are the extreme right networks, the Bolloré networks, the Stérin networks, which in turn are linked to the Mileil or Trump networks, which are governments that use disinformation as a strategy in their countries,” adds the rebel deputy.
Source: BFM TV
