after luxurious meals, a new “problematic” expense emerges

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The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) has extended an investigation already opened targeting Laurent Wauquiez, boss of LR deputies, to an opinion study concerning him commissioned in 2021 by the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region which he headed, we learned on Tuesday. ‘AFP from judicial sources.

A “problematic” study for “personal political interest”

On August 22, the socialist opposition group in the region announced that it had reported to the PNF elements that had leaked from a report from the Regional Court of Auditors (CRC), finally published on October 10, concerning a contract concluded by the community with the research company Mediascopie.

This was to analyze “in real time” the impact of the interviews given by Laurent Wauquiez to different media. For 6,000 eurosMediascopie thus studied the reception of comments made on BFMTV on March 2021.

However, the study, carried out during the regional election campaign during which Mr. Wauquiez aimed for his re-election as head of the Region, detailed the political affiliations of those surveyed and “made it possible to refine the candidate’s comments based on the reactions of a given political group,” noted the regional auditors.

It presented “a personal political interest for the person concerned, but not necessarily a local public interest”, they concluded, judging it “problematic”.

The remuneration of one of his relatives already in question

The judicial source indicated to theAFP that this report had been attached to an investigation opened in the fall of 2020 by the PNF relating to the collaborators employed by Mr. Wauquiez when he headed the Aura region and in particular on the remuneration of one of his relatives, Ange Sitbon.

A search took place in September 2022 at the regional headquarters in this case, already following an old report from the CRC.

Another ongoing investigation into the lavish meal

Another preliminary investigation opened by the PNF in December 2022 “for favoritism, concealment of favoritism and misappropriation of public funds”, also followed by a search at the headquarters of the Region in Lyon in February 2023, relates to the “Dinner summits” of June 2022.

This sumptuous meal was organized at the expense of the region with around a hundred guests and a bill of more than 1,000 euros per head.

The elected LR, re-elected deputy following the dissolution and since become president of the LR group in the National Assembly, has since left the presidency of the Aura region. He gave way to Fabrice Pannekoucke.

With AFP

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