Matignon persists and signs. This Saturday morning, Elisabeth Borne’s services indicated that Olivier Dussopt retains “all the confidence of the Prime Minister” despite the decision of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF). The support was already shown on Friday evening with Franceinfo.
The PNF retained this crime of “favouritism” for a future trial that will be related to a public contract entered into at the end of the 2000s with the Saur group. The minister, at the forefront of pension reform, “questions the idea of settlement” in this judicial file.
Dussop’s Counterattacks
According to information on Friday, revealed by Mediapart, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) has reserved the crime of “favouritism” for a future trial against Olivier Dussopt that will deal with a public contract entered into at the end of the 2000s with the group Sauro.
“In May 2020, a press article believed that I could question my relations with a water group in the city of Annonay, of which I was mayor” and “the financial prosecutor’s office opened an investigation and carried out many controls”, declared the minister from France Inter.
“At the end of this investigative work, the prosecution had grouped the facts into five points and I observe that the explanations given with my lawyer convinced the prosecution of my good faith since in four of these five points the prosecution decided that it was necessary to qualify maintaining that there was no process for corruption, usurpation or enrichment, “he added.
But “the prosecution considers that in the framework of a public procurement procedure in 2009 (…), there could be a crime of favoritism,” said Olivier Dussopt again. “It is an affirmation, a thesis, that I discuss and I only have one wish (…), is to continue convincing and explaining how things happened to convince of my good faith.”
According to Mediapart, the search carried out at the minister’s premises by financial investigators from Oclciff (Central Office for the Fight against Financial and Fiscal Crimes) revealed “exchanges between Olivier Dussopt and (the Saur) that seemed to leave little doubt about the existence of a arrangement around a public market from 2009-2010”, when he was a deputy and mayor of Annonay, in the Ardèche.
Source: BFM TV
