On February 14, 2024, there was shock at the administrative headquarters of Paris-Saint-Germain, in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine). Agents from the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses (OCLCIFF) and the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) entered the imposing building, nicknamed the “Factory”, to search it.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers A search was carried out at the Paris Saint-Germain headquarters in early February.
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According to our information, they seize, in the digital archives of PSG in connection with the “presidency”, the “protocol” and the “public relations”, the lists of guests to the famous “VIP square”, in the “box” or in the “dry place” at the Parc des Princes for the club’s matches.
One name catches their attention: that of the former Macronist deputy (2017-2022) of the 15the district of Paris, Hugues Renson, also former vice-president of the National Assembly (2017-2022). The investigators do their calculation and note that the former parliamentarian obtained, “in a personal capacity”, 26 squared places, from 2017 to 2021. He also made “benefit relatives and a third party with a volume of 32 places”, “all of these invitations representing a total of 58 places.”
He mainly obtained these positions – in addition to the help of the Qatari president of PSG, Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, known as NAK – from the club’s former communications director, Jean-Martial Ribes, who was indicted for “corruption and influence peddling” as part of the judicial investigation into dirty tricks surrounding PSG and NAK.
“For food, we’re going to gorge ourselves there!”
“For food, we’re going to gorge ourselves there!” writes Mr. Renson to his former parliamentary collaborator with whom he is preparing to benefit, in 2022, from invitations to the Parc square.
On September 5, 2024, it was Mr. Renson’s turn to be troubled by the courts: he was indicted for “ influence peddling by a person holding a public elective mandate”, suspected of having received benefits and gifts from PSG, and of having abused his influence in order to enable the club to obtain favorable decisions from a public authority or administration.
Mr. Ribes’ privileged relay on political and legislative subjects related to PSG, Mr. Renson also intervened when the former PSG communications director requested personal services, concerning, among other things, the procedure for acquiring French nationality and a passport for his wife of Moroccan origin, in October 2019.
Read our survey | Article reserved for our subscribers When politicians put themselves at the service of PSG
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“PSG is an intimate part of my activity, said in May, during his police custody, this great supporter of the club, denying having made the slightest “service”. I have never received any compensation whatsoever in my action as an elected official. It is shameful to imagine it and it is factually false. There has never been any link, compensation, or dependence.” When questioned, his lawyer, Mario Stasi, said that his client “contests in the strongest possible terms the indictment against him. He is determined to demonstrate, during these legal proceedings, that he has always acted within the framework of his mandate, without ever committing any illegal act whatsoever in the exercise of his functions. By virtue of a fundamental principle of our law, it goes without saying that he is presumed innocent.”
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