The Secretary General of the Elysée, Alexis Kohler, on May 26, 2024 in Berlin where he accompanied President Emmanuel Macron (POOL / Stephane LEMOUTON)
The Paris Court of Appeal on Tuesday set aside the prescription raised by the Secretary General of the Elysée, Alexis Kohler, and confirmed the proceedings against him for illegally taking interests in the investigation into his family ties with the shipowner MSC , several sources close to the matter told AFP.
This decision, confirmed by a judicial source, could be the subject of an appeal by Mr. Kohler and the two others accused.
Emmanuel Macron's right-hand man has been indicted since 2022 for illegal acquisition 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 family Aponte.
The investigating chamber had examined in camera on October 1 the request of Mr. Kohler, who is first implicated for facts dating back to the years 2009-2012, when he officiated as a representative of the Participation Agency of the State (APE) within 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).
He is then suspected of having, between 2012 and 2016, 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 on the one hand that he always kept himself away from any decision relating to MSC and that he informed his superiors of the existence of family ties “very beyond its ethical obligations.
On the other hand, it ensures at the end of a legal calculation that at least part of the facts, prior to 2014, are prescribed.
On Tuesday, the investigating chamber adopted a position different from the general prosecutor's office of the Court of Appeal and from that followed for a long time by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office in this case, by conforming to the vision of the investigating magistrates.
The investigating chamber in fact confirmed an order of April 2023 by which the investigating judges concluded that the facts were not prescribed, in particular because of the “positive acts to conceal” this conflict of interest attributed to Mr. Kohler.
Two former bosses of the APE, Bruno Bézard (2007-2010) and Jean-Dominique Comolli (2010-2012), implicated for their “pact of silence” with Mr. Kohler which would result from an “embarrassment” regarding this situation, had also argued that these facts were prescribed, but the court of appeal rejected their appeals.
No lawyer for the defense or for Anticor, the civil party behind the relaunch of the investigations after the dismissal of a preliminary investigation in August 2019, reacted immediately to this decision.
