The former Paris MP was found guilty of using 114,057 euros from his parliamentary mandate expenses for personal purposes.
Former Socialist Party leader Jean-Christophe Cambadélis was sentenced this Wednesday, September 4 in Paris to eight months in prison, suspended, and a fine of 60,000 euros, of which 30,000 euros was suspended, for having used 114,057 euros from his parliamentary mandate expenses for personal purposes.
The criminal court found the former Paris MP, now aged 73, guilty of embezzlement of public funds, considering that he had “knowingly used funds made available to him under the mandate expenses allowance (IRFM) for purposes contrary to their purpose”.
Jean-Christophe Cambadélis has “willfully transgressed the law”he said, stressing that these facts, “committed by an elected official of the Republic”wore “attack on the values of republican democracy”He was also sentenced to five years of ineligibility, and still has to repay the National Assembly a little over 27,000 euros.
His lawyer is considering appealing
This sentence is almost in line with the demands of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), which had requested an eight-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 60,000 euros, without suspension, as well as five years of ineligibility. His lawyer, Jean-Etienne Giamarchi, has indicated that he is considering appealing.
Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, who was a member of parliament from 1988 to 1993 and then from 1997 to 2017, was prosecuted for misuse of IRFM during his last two years at the Palais Bourbon. His expenses, as well as those of 14 other elected officials from all sides, had been highlighted at the end of 2018 by the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP), created after the Cahuzac scandal.
The socialist MP had thus notably used his IRFM to pay his party contribution or to pay part of his campaign expenses in 2017 – which was however expressly prohibited by the rules in force in the Assembly since March 2015. He had also regularly used the IRFM envelope to pay personal expenses, such as his rent, his energy bills, his taxes or a trip to Prague with his family.
In 2022, Jean-Christophe Cambadélis had agreed to be tried during a procedure of appearance on acknowledgment of guilt (CRPC), a sort of French “plea bargain” allowing to avoid a criminal trial. In this context, he had accepted the sentence, negotiated at the time with the PNF, of six months of suspended imprisonment and one year of ineligibility, also accompanied by the suspended sentence. However, during the homologation hearing, the justice system had nevertheless considered this sentence insufficiently severe and consequently refused to homologate it, leading Jean-Christophe Cambadélis to be tried before the criminal court.
