In Reunion, five years of ineligibility required against Didier Robert, judged for having had his rents paid by the community

“The regional council did not have to bear the rental costs of a villa with a swimming pool in a popular area for the exclusive benefit of Mr. Robert and his family. » Facing the criminal court of Saint-Denis de la Réunion, where he is being prosecuted, Friday October 11, for “concussion” and “illegal taking of interests”, Didier Robert, president of the community between 2010 and 2021, impassively accepts the requisitions from the prosecutor, Véronique Denizot: eight months suspended prison sentence, 100,000 euros fine, and five years of ineligibility.

The former various right-wing elected official is on trial for having received, through a deliberation that he himself had signed, a subsistence allowance of 90 euros per day, between January 2016 and February 2020. Or 134,280 euros. A device “perfectly legal and regulated by the texts”defended the former elected official, who renounced politics after being sentenced, in May 2021, to fifteen months in prison and three years of ineligibility for disputed remuneration in the local public company Réunion des musées regional.

“I find it difficult to understand that I can be accused of having benefited from a right attached to my position”Mr. Robert gets irritated at the bar. If he signed a lease for this beautiful villa located on the heights of Saint-Denis, it is “in order to be able to exercise [s]he missions of regional president”. His personal residence was at the time about forty kilometers away, in the west of the island.

“Live decently”

Launched following a report from the regional chamber of accounts, the investigation also noted that the rent for Didier Robert’s Dionysian villa amounted to 2,300 euros while the monthly compensation varied between 2,700 or 2,790 euros. According to the former elected official, the compensation did not only cover the rent, but also other expenses relating to his “accommodation costs” : cleaning lady, especially for “iron [s]es shirts in order to be presentable »subscription to water, electricity, Internet, various taxes, swimming pool maintenance. Expenses for “live decently”he asserts, living up to his duties as regional president, making a link with the living conditions of the prefect of Reunion, who has official accommodation and domestic employees.

For the prosecutor, Véronique Denizot, the former president maintained a “bad faith confusion” between subsistence allowance, residence allowance or even company accommodation or personal residence. In this case, the magistrate can also base her proceedings on a judgment of the Court of Auditors of July 2023, which sanctioned the regional payer of the community for having “failed to fulfill its control obligations”by accusing him of payments without any text or decision having fixed the applicable rate.

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