The former Rhône MP, Philippe Cochet (LR), still mayor of Caluire and leader of the Lyon right in the metropolis, is being prosecuted for embezzlement concerning the alleged fictitious employment as parliamentary attaché of his wife from 2002 to 2017.
Le Figaro Lyon
The announced end of two decades of reign over the north of the agglomeration? The former deputy and still mayor of Caluire-et-Cuire, Philippe Cochet (LR), could well lose his functions in the city and the metropolis at the end of his current mandates. In addition to the three-year suspended prison sentence requested against him, the requisitions of the national financial prosecutor’s office (PNF) pronounced this Friday in the case of the alleged fictitious employment of his wife as a parliamentary assistant mention a sentence of ineligibility of five years, covering the next elections in 2026. A “mandatory sentence” for this type of facts, specifies the prosecution, which also requested the confiscation of his former parliamentary office, valued at 320,000 euros, and the sentencing of his wife, Laetitia Cochet, to 18 months in prison, suspended.
The courts accuse them of embezzlement following revelations from a journalistic investigation by Lyon Capital et France 3 in 2017, in the context of the Pénélope Fillon affair. “As Mrs Cochet’s work cannot be established, except for a few occasional services to her husband, the employment could be fictitious,” points out the Anticor association, which had constituted itself as a civil party following her filing of a complaint in 2021, at the origin of the procedure. On the scale of the 15 years of employment contract binding the deputy and his collaborator, the damage would amount to 639,000 euros, specifies the association. Not counting the 94,000 euros of unemployment benefits received when she lost her job, in 2017, with the defeat of her husband. France Travail has also constituted itself as a civil party.
No office, no photo, but a good salary
Presumed innocent pending judgment, set for December 11, and a possible appeal, the Cochet couple deny any misappropriation of funds. It has indeed emerged that some interlocutors may have considered Laetitia Cochet to be her husband’s parliamentary attaché. But the MP’s other collaborators said they were unaware that his wife was part of the team, indicating that they had only rarely met her at the office, even though she was the best paid of them, at 5,600 euros gross.
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The latter had not been assigned an office or a specific function, according to the PNF investigation. The couple were only able to produce 192 emails, or one per week, attesting to her activity. They pleaded a problem with internet hosting. The fact remains that Laetitia Cochet was also absent from the parliamentary attachés’ photo gallery.
The employment of a family member by a member of parliament was only banned in the summer of 2017, after the presidential and legislative elections. At the time of the facts attributed to the Cochet couple, 18% of members of parliament were in this situation, with activity attested in the majority of cases.
