Should a town hall bear the cost of having a driver pick up its councilor, residing around sixty kilometers from town hall? Even more so when this support has – for a long time – not been the subject of any deliberation by the municipal council and inspections show numerous uses far from the municipality?
All these questions are at the heart of a preliminary investigation targeting the mayor (Les Républicains) of Meaux (Seine-et-Marne), Jean-François Copé, according to information from Mondeconfirmed by the Paris prosecutor's office, Monday November 25.
This investigation, opened in June and entrusted to the brigade for the repression of corruption and tax fraud, follows a report of Anticor dating from February 2023. The anti-corruption association had estimated, upon reading a report from the regional chamber of accounts of Ile-de-France (CRC) published in October 2022, that certain facts were « [susceptibles] to characterize a misappropriation of public funds.”
According to the calculations of the chamber, which had not taken legal action, the city of Meaux had spent 126,315 euros per year, on average, between 2018 and 2021 for Mr. Copé's two drivers, fuel and maintenance of the car, without having voted for a deliberation or setting up a monitoring tool. However, Anticor recalls in its report, the provision of a service vehicle to a mayor “can only intervene if it is expressly provided for by a annual deliberation [encadrant son usage afin que l’élu ne l’utilise pas] for personal purposes ».
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers Anticor approval: the Council of State confirms the illegality of the drafting of the 2021 decree
Read later
If it is not prohibited or unusual for a mayor not to live in the municipality where he is elected, “the use that the mayor of Meaux makes of the service vehicle (…) stands out »notes the CRC in its report. “From 2016 to March 25, 2022, the daily and permanent allocation of this vehicle took place in the absence of any municipal authorization”she continues, while the general code of local authorities (CGCT) has required them since 2013 to deliberate each year on this issue of vehicles. “This text had escaped the attention of the city and this error was corrected as soon as it was reported to me (that is to say during the control of the CRC) by a deliberation of March 25, 2022”indicates Mr. Copé at Monde.
“Important and repeated journeys”
The mayor lives 60 kilometers from his town, in the 16e district of Paris, where he also works as a lawyer specializing in mergers, acquisitions and public business law, in a firm located in “fifteen minutes walk” from his home, according to the elected official.
You have 68.02% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
