The PNF is investigating the surveys ordered by Wauquiez and paid for by the Region

It is an investigation already open that the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) has expanded. He targets Laurent Wauquiez, boss of LR deputies, for an opinion study concerning him commissioned in 2021 by the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region which he headed, AFP learned on Tuesday from a judicial source. 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 euros, Mediascopie studied the reception of comments made on BFMTV in March 2021. However, the study, carried out during the regional election campaign during which Laurent Wauquiez was seeking re-election as head of the Region, detailed the political affiliations of respondents and “made it possible to refine the candidate’s remarks based on the reactions of a given political group”noted regional auditors. She presented “a personal political interest for the person concerned, but not necessarily a local public interest”they concluded, judging it “problematic”.

An investigation into possible fictitious jobs

The judicial source indicated to AFP that this report had been attached to an investigation opened in the fall of 2020 by the PNF relating to the collaborators employed by Laurent Wauquiez when he headed the Aura region and in particular on the remuneration of a 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.

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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” in 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, left the presidency of the Aura region.