the former president of the Chamber of Agriculture and mayor of Lanta returned to court

See my news
Follow Voix du Midi Lauragais

Almost two years to the day after their conviction at first instance, Serge Bouscatel et Marc Mengaud were back before the Toulouse criminal court. The old president of the Chamber of Agriculture of Haute-Garonne and the one who was mayor of Lanta appeared after having appealed in a case whose first judgment had forced them to each abandon their elective mandate for a period of three and a half years. In addition to this ineligibility with provisional execution, they received a respective sentence of ten and six months of suspended prison sentence.

The first, at the head of a farm, is implicated as part of an investigation opened following a complaint filed by France Nature Environnement during the summer of 2019. He is accused of having committed several violations of town planning rules by building, in Lanta, a hangar in an area reserved for agricultural activity, but in which he installed the industrial activities of Probatelhis other company specializing in the construction of metal frames.

The second is none other than the farmer’s uncle. He is accused of illegal taking of interest: he is suspected of having used his elective position at the head of the village to promote this establishment and then intervene with different authorities in order to help the business manager try to regularize his situation.

Marc Mengaud: “It’s humiliating! »

During this hearing, Marc Mengaud was the first to explain himself. “When I signed a decree or participated in deliberations, I never thought that family ties could be a problem
. For me, I approached it like an ordinary file, I treated it like the others,” he initially justifies himself when the court asks him why he never took a back seat on the files concerning his nephew. .

“But when you personally intervene with the Departmental Directorate of Territories to regularize the situation of your nephew, we can wonder if you would have done that for all your citizens,” relaunches the president of the court. “When it’s a complicated file, yes,” retorts the former mayor. Before letting go of some regrets a little later: “If I had been warned, I would have withdrawn. I was naive, I admit it. »

You know, when you are mayor of a small town, you don’t know everything. We have our noses to the task, we don’t think anything bad. I was thinking about developing my town and the workers who worked there. […] I wanted to save jobs, so that people would not suffer.

At length, with tremors in his voice, Marc Mengaud then explains to the court how he suffers from the situation: “I have always been honest, valiant, humanist… So it’s complicated, it’s humiliating. I am pointed out people say I embezzled money when I didn’t get rich. Because we must be clear: When we talk about illegal taking of interest, what we mean behind that is money!So it’s very hard to live with, for my daughters, for my grandchildren and for myself. » Two hours later, when the president of the court gave him the floor one last time, he even confided: “ It’s horrible. I’m going through difficult times. It’s unthinkable to have come to the point of no longer daring to go out into the street. »

Serge Bouscatel explains the move from Probatel

It is then Serge Bouscatel’s turn to answer the court’s questions. The business manager is first questioned about his desire, expressed in 2008, during a presentation of his hangar project to the Lanta municipal council, to transfer his industrial activity to this building that he wishes to build in the area. agricultural. “ I didn’t think it would hurt, because from the start, my installation was conditioned to a dual activity. So I carried out this second job on the farm from the start in 1992. The income from the farm alone was not enough and I had to have outside income. So I created Probatel,” he argues first.

A few years later, in 2018, he ended up transferring Probatel’s activities from the historic headquarters of its operations to this hangar which has just been built. The former president of the Chamber of Agriculture explains that he had no choice: “The Labor Department came to my house and drew up a certain number of reports with injunctions. I managed to lift most of them, but I realized that there was one that I couldn’t lift and which could potentially lead to the closure of my business. I received a formal notice, the deadline was approaching, I was afraid and I decided to move. I did not intend to commit an offense, but I wanted to comply with the regulations. »

The president of the court then asks Serge Bouscatel if, at the time of transfer, the new building complies with the building permit filed. ” No. There was no storage cell or weighbridge. And the trees and plantations were missing too. But today, they are there. I complied. I planted all the trees, the cell was erected and the bridge was built,” he assures, while his interlocutor points out that other offenses seem to have been noted and that the interventions of his uncle question. “ It wasn’t me who went to ask my uncle. The interface is the architect,” replied the boss of Probatel.

Like the former mayor of Lanta, Serge Bouscatel also insists on the negative consequences of the first judgment. “It was terrible. We sell part of our production on the market. Every time there is an article on the case, it has an impact. You have to understand people, they are not going to buy a chicken from someone who has been convicted. And for Probatel, this also raises doubts among customers, but also for banks and insurance companies,” he emphasizes.

The attorney general not really convinced

A comment which the Advocate General was quick to respond to a few minutes later. “At the time of the move, you had 15 employees. Now you have 20. It’s growing well! », he points out to the Lantanese business manager who in return evokes a annual turnover of 2.5 million euros . Before specifying that he had obtained a building permit on land in the Maureville activity zone, of which he is in the process of becoming owner and where he intends to transfer the Probatel activity in order to leave the Lanta agricultural zone as imposed by the first judgment. “Since October 2022, I have not gone eight days without trying to find a solution. But I received a lot of refusals,” he comments.

An argument which, again, does not really seem to convince the Advocate General. At the time of his requisitions, he will thus request the reallocation of the hangar to agricultural activity through the dismantling of the officeswithin six months, with a penalty of €500 per day of delay (compared to €100 in first instance). “Because we see that he still took his time to find a solution”he specified to argue his decision.

“Family ties prevailed”

After the intervention of the representative of the Departmental Directorate of Territories who delivered a very unfavorable presentation to the defendants, firstly pointing out the “unusual proximity between an elected official and his constituent in such a matter” then denouncing the “false and dishonest presentation” of this file to the administrationin order to obtain a regularization of the situation, the attorney general took the floor to deliver his indictment:

This affair is a bit like hunger justifying the means. We have agricultural land on which we are building a building for the agricultural operation and there is another activity which seems to take over and which is developing well so we finally install it there, especially since irregularities are noted in the old premises. […] Mr. Bouscatel quickly understands the difficulty and finds the most economical solution, presenting everyone with a fait accompli. And Mr. Mengaud will lend a hand to his nephew, while then maintaining that he does not know the latter’s activities. But everyone knows everyone in a small community this size. We are not in a city of 400,000 inhabitants. Playing naive may not be the most appropriate defense.

The representative of the Public Ministry continued his argument: “Family ties prevailed over the public interest in preserving agricultural land. […] Mr. Mengaud and Mr. Bouscatel walked hand in hand to obtain this regularization . » Before launching: “Mr. Bouscatel says that he moved under pressure from the administration in view of the extremely serious situation in which the company found itself and that he did it to save his employees. But when you are president of the Chamber of Agriculture, you know the town planning regulations at the agricultural level. Because we are regularly presented with these types of files. »

What are the requisitions?

The Advocate General finally demanded the confirmation of the prison sentence suspended for 10 months and a fine of €10,000 against Serge Bouscatel. However, he requested that the penalty of ineligibility is increased to a duration of five years(compared to three and a half years at first instance). Master Guy Debuisson the lawyer for the boss of the Probatel company, demanded that this penalty of ineligibility be lowered to 24 months and the non-registration of a possible conviction in his client’s criminal record.

Concerning Marc Mengaud, the public prosecutor requested a six-month suspended prison sentenceand one ineligibility for a period of five years. MaitreRobin Senie-Delonthe lawyer for the former mayor of Lanta, asked for his client’s release in this case and, if a sentence of ineligibility were to be pronounced, that itdoes not exceed three years., as well as the non-registration of the conviction in the criminal record.

At the end of this hearing, which lasted more than three hours and which concluded after dark, the case was put under advisement. The verdict is expected onThursday December 12, 2024.

Follow all the news from your favorite cities and media by subscribing to Mon Actu.