Tickets in the PSG VIP area in exchange for interventions in view of favorable decisions from the administration? The former Macronist vice-president of the Assembly Hugues Renson was indicted Thursday in Paris in a case of influence peddling around the capital’s football club.
Mr. Renson, 46, a member of parliament for Paris from 2017 to 2022, and currently secretary general of EDF Hydro according to his personal bio, was questioned all day Thursday by a Parisian financial investigating judge, who also placed him under judicial supervision, according to a source close to the case to AFP.
“Hugues Renson contests this. He did not commit any illegal act in the course of his duties,” his lawyer Mario Stasi told AFP.
According to the elements of the investigation of which AFP has obtained knowledge, Mr. Renson is accused of having, as an elected official, obtained tickets for club matches, advantages for his family or requested a job at PSG.
In exchange, according to this source, the person who created an informal group of MPs who were friends of PSG is suspected of having used his “real or supposed influence” to obtain for the club owned by Qatar “favorable decisions from a public authority or administration”, concerning a sports hall for a judo subsidiary of PSG, the club’s training center, a visa for staff, etc.
In this multi-layered investigation opened in the summer of 2021, several protagonists, former police officers, club personalities or lobbyists, are suspected of having provided mutual services in exchange for advantages, sometimes coming from PSG, other times benefiting the club.
Since September 2022, the investigating magistrate has indicted Jean-Martial Ribes, the club’s former communications director, Malik Naït-Liman, the club’s former supporters’ representative and former police officer in the intelligence services, police officers and the Franco-Algerian lobbyist Tayeb Benabderrahmane.
The name of Mr. Renson, as well as that of a former advisor (2012-2019) to the sports unit of the Elysée, Charlotte Casasoprana, appeared in this investigation more recently, thanks to the exploitation of Mr. Ribes’ telephone.
They were heard in a free hearing in May.
– “Nasser t’invite” –
According to telephone conversations seen by AFP, Mr. Renson contacted Interior Ministers Christophe Castaner, in office between 2018 and 2020, and Gérald Darmanin (2020-2024), following requests from Mr. Ribes.
Heard as a witness in May, one of Mr. Renson’s former collaborators in the Assembly between 2017 and 2020 estimated at “around twenty” the number of places offered by PSG to the deputy within the “Carré”, the very chic and very prestigious space for the club’s approximately 200 distinguished guests.
According to messages obtained by investigators from Mr Renson’s phone, the figure could reach around 30 between 2017 and 2021.
“Nasser” Al-Khelaïfi, a civil party in this case and Qatari boss of PSG, “invites you to the match”, wrote Mr. Ribes for example in April 2021, two days before an important Champions League quarter-final in Paris.
Asked about Mr Renson’s specific interventions in favour of the Parisian club, the former parliamentary attaché minimised them: “We have seen so many come and gone that I have no specific memory of them.”
Another former collaborator indicated at the end of April that the invitations “were linked to (the) function” of Mr. Renson and were “not gifts” but a “fairly frequent” approach for elected officials.
He sometimes went to the Park “with friends who were MPs”, she stressed.
What about interventions for “private” requests, for example for the former PSG communications director? Hugues Renson “intervened like a deputy towards an administrator”, replied this former collaborator.
Mr Renson’s name also appears in the investigation into suspicions of tax favors granted to the Parisian club during the transfer of Brazilian striker Neymar in 2017, which has been handled since the beginning of 2024 in a separate procedure.
The courts are wondering whether the former vice-president of the National Assembly tried to obtain tax advantages for PSG from the government during the transfer of the superstar to the capital for 222 million euros (the most expensive in history).
According to a source close to the case, Mr. Renson was not questioned on Thursday about this aspect of the investigation.
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