LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP
The Minister of Culture, appointed despite her involvement in the Carlos Ghosn affair, will soon know the court’s decision on her case.
JUSTICE – It is not only the results of the legislative elections that worry the Minister of Culture. Rachida Dati had asked the Paris Court of Appeal to cancel the proceedings against her, in the Paris part of the Carlos Ghosn affair. She will not have won her case, since her appeal concerning the statute of limitations of the facts was rejected, we learned this Tuesday, July 2.
The investigating chamber of the court of appeal “did not grant Rachida Dati’s request” et “We will advise Mrs Dati to appeal to the Court of Cassation because we believe that the law is in our favour.”two of his lawyers, Olivier Pardo and Olivier Bluche, told the press. “This decision does not in any way prejudice the substance or the innocence of Ms Dati.”they added
Former Minister of Justice and former mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris, the Minister of Culture was indicted in the summer of 2021 for corruption and passive influence peddling by a person holding a public elective mandate. A stain on her CV that had not, however, hindered Gabriel Attal and Emmanuel Macron in forming the government at the very beginning of the year.
In this case called ” Renault-Nissan » which involves the former automobile magnate, Rachida Dati has been in the sights of justice for several years. The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office is seeking to know her remuneration conditions by the automobile group from 2010 to 2012, when Carlos Ghosn was still its boss. She is indeed suspected of having received 900,000 euros from RNBV, a subsidiary of the Renault-Nissan alliance, without compensation for real work, while she was a lawyer and Member of the European Parliament (2009-2019).
Dati formally denies this.
A central question is therefore haunting investigators in this part of the case: during these years, was Rachida Dati paid 900,000 euros for consultancy activities (as a lawyer) or does this correspond to a job of convenience to mask lobbying activities which are nevertheless prohibited for European parliamentarians?
Since her name first appeared in a complaint filed in 2019 by a Renault shareholder (which also implicated media criminologist Alain Bauer, Carlos Ghosn and his wife), Rachida Dati has contested any form of illegality and denied all accusations. She had also complained about a political decision against her, at the time she was running in the right-wing primary for the 2022 presidential election.
“Everyone knew about Rachida Dati’s intervention as Renault-Nissan’s lawyer in 2009 and 2010. Everything is perfectly clear.”assured the minister’s lawyers on Tuesday, before the hearing. “We are waiting calmly for the statute of limitations to be established. This is a legal fact.”they added to AFP.
With this new decision on Tuesday, Rachida Dati now risks a trial before the criminal court.
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