On October 1, the investigating chamber examined in camera the defense request of Alexis Kohler, indicted since 2022 for illegal taking of interests for having participated as a senior official, from 2009 to 2016, in several decisions relating to the Italian-Swiss shipowner run by his mother's cousins, the Aponte family. First, from 2009 to 2012, as representative of the State Participation Agency (APE) on the board of directors of STX France (now Chantiers de l'Atlantique), but also on the board of directors of the Grand maritime port of Le Havre (GPMH). Between 2012 and 2016, he was then suspected of having participated in choices on files involving MSC in Bercy, in the cabinet of Pierre Moscovici, then Emmanuel Macron.
From the beginning, Alexis Kohler's defense claims that he, on the one hand, always kept himself away from any decision relating to MSC and that he informed his superiors of the existence of family ties “far beyond its ethical obligations”. On the other hand, it ensures at the end of a legal calculation that part of the facts, prior to 2014, are prescribed. Asked before the hearing, his lawyer, Me Éric Dezeuze, did not wish to speak.
“Pact of silence”
In an order read by AFP, the investigating magistrates concluded in April 2023 that the facts were not prescribed. They, in particular, argued that Alexis Kohler carried out “positive acts to conceal this conflict of interest”, which makes it possible to place the start of the limitation period at the time when they were revealed by Mediapart in May 2018, and therefore to initiate proceedings.
For the judges, Alexis Kohler, in fact, kept this connection by only informing his direct collaborators in a “restricted manner” and opted for a “deliberate non-revelation of this link to major” institutional or economic interlocutors involved with him in guidance relating to MSC.
Two former bosses of the APE, Bruno Bézard (2007-2010) and Jean-Dominique Comolli (2010-2012), implicated for their “pact of silence” with Alexis Kohler which would result from an “embarrassment” regarding this situation, also argued that these facts were prescribed. Contacted by AFP before the hearing, their lawyers did not wish to speak either.
The prescription of facts approved?
According to elements of its written requisitions consulted by AFP and a source close to the case, the general prosecutor's office advocated, during the hearing on October 1, a position comparable to that of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) and the defense of the Secretary General of the Élysée, by approving the prescription of the facts relating to STX and the GPMH.
Me Jean-Baptiste Soufron, lawyer for Anticor, civil party at the origin of the relaunch of the investigations after the closing of a preliminary investigation in August 2019, contested with the AFP the hypothesis raised by the defense and the PNF of a prescription which would be due to “the possible knowledge of the facts” accused of Alexis Kohler “by other officials and their absence of denunciation via article 40”.
Very politically sensitive
Whatever the decision on appeal this Tuesday, several sources close to the case believe that the Court of Cassation will be seized of an appeal to decide on the merits of these questions in this very politically sensitive case.
Since April 2023, the investigations have been closed and after a possible final decision in cassation, the PNF will be required to take its requisitions and decide between supporting the proceedings initiated or maintaining an opposition to them, before the final decision of the judges of 'instruction.
For his part, Emmanuel Macron expressed – and this, on several occasions – his “confidence” in his “honest” right-hand man and considered that the “procedure was not being completed”.
France
