Despite the heat in the hearing room, Penelope Fillon does not leave his mask. Its port is optional but, today, on the bench of the accused, it is a precious comfort. Thanks to this, a person can’t distinguish the grin, the tension, the anxiety. The weariness also (the trial started in February).
a Few minutes earlier, the president has rejected the request of his lawyer, maître Pierre Cornut-Gentille, as well as that of the council of her husband, master Antonin Lévy. They tried to pay to the debates the recent statements of Eliane Houlette, former boss of the Parquet national financier, by referring to “pressures” procedural of its supervisory authority, the prosecutor-general’s office during the investigation Fillon.
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Penelope Fillon, therefore, knows that she has only a few more minutes before the sanction. She listens to the president of the tribunal, Nathalie Gavarino, in which each word takes the form of a sentence. The flow is that of a machine gun. The tone cold, so far away, these small touches of empathy that she had thought to guess against him during the hearings. Penelope Fillon is the request which is passed the magistrate asked, and serene, never critical, one that has stretched so many poles during the hearings.
At his side, François Fillon seething inwardly. It has a fixed gaze. We feel ready to bite. When the president asked him to appear before it, he removed his mask.
“No justification” for the behavior of the ex-Prime minister
The magistrate makes no difference. In condemning the former Prime minister to five years in jail, including two farm, as well as a penalty of ineligibility of ten years, it follows, a few details, the indictments of the public prosecutor. Yes, the employment of his wife Penelope was well fictitious. And there was no reason for it to be paid to maintain the local network of her husband. None of the arguments of the defence, who argued to release the general, not convinced.
The penalty is ” heavy “, the magistrate says and assumes. It has found “no justification” for the behavior of the ex-Prime minister. It has “failed in its duty of probity” and its ” duty of exemplarity “. By doing “invoke his personal interest over the common interest “in a goal of” personal enrichment “, the defendant “helped to erode the confidence” of citizens. It has ” damaged the life of democracy “.
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The president fails to cite any case law to support its judgment. The facts are serious enough to not discuss more than that the arguments of the defense and the numerous rulings of case-law that they had put forward to defend their client.
It is in the writings of the compliance officer of the national Assembly that the president of the tribunal has found the philosophy of his judgment. A few years ago, the compliance officer explained to the parliamentarians that their legitimacy was, of course, suffrage, electoral. But also their exemplary. In this regard, the former Prime minister did, according to her, no excuse.
To conclude the reading of his judgment, the president is surprised, finally, to the defense system of the spouses Fillon – “this belongs to you” – which never acknowledged that the yellow line had been crossed.
“The case of Fillon” is not finished
was Sentenced to two years suspended prison sentence, Penelope Fillon is also sentenced to a penalty of ineligibility. It should give up to serve on the municipal council of Solesmes, where it has just been re-elected in the first round. At the last city council, she had chosen to take care of finances, of culture, of the enlightenment and the flowering of the streets of the village… Solesmes will need to find another assistant.
coming out of the hearing room, master Antonin Lévy, the lawyer François Fillon, takes his head of the bad days. His clients are appealing the judgment. “There will be a new trial,” said the lawyer, as revealed to The Point a few days ago. “It is all the more necessary because, since a few days, it’s finally starting to understand what we sense since 2017, the terms grotesque in which this investigation was triggered, the conditions of scandals in which this instruction has been initiated, the surprising weather in which the investigations were then conducted. “”The case of Fillon” is not finished. And “the case of the trial Fillon” is only a beginning…
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The confessions of François Fillon
