Michèle Alliot-Marie, 77, a former right-wing figure and ex-minister, was sentenced on Friday, September 6, to six months in prison, suspended, for illegal taking of interests. in a case dating from twelve years ago at the town hall of Saint-Jean-de-Luz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques).
The lawyers of the former Minister of Defense, Interior, Justice and Foreign Affairs under Jacques Chirac and then Nicolas Sarkozy immediately announced that they would appeal. In this case, she was targeted for her alleged role in the payment of subsidies to an association chaired by her father, when she was deputy mayor of Saint-Jean-de-Luz. A judicial investigation had been opened in 2013.
The investigation brought to light subsidies from the Saint-Jean-de-Luz town hall to an association that organized the city’s Young Directors Festival and was headed by Bernard Marie, who died in 2015. According to investigators, this association received more than 260,000 euros in its bank account between January 2010 and October 2012, notably from the Saint-Jean-de-Luz tourist office, which was subsidized by the municipality. Each year, the association also received 25,000 euros from the town hall.
Between 2009 and 2013, the date of the last edition of the Young Directors Festival, Mme Alliot-Marie was deputy mayor in addition to her duties as minister. “MAM” thus participated “personally or by proxy” to votes on the budgets, financial accounts and objectives agreements of the tourist office, the investigators established.
