To the public prosecutor of Lille, the charges are sufficiently established so that the president of the european Metropolis of Lille (North), Damien Castelain, compares before the correctional court for “concealment of abuse of trust”, in the case of the Grand Stage, indicates Tuesday, June 9, Agence France-Presse. A trial was therefore required. In 2018, while seven people indicted or placed under status of witness assisted in this case had received a non-place, the public prosecutor had asked for additional information on Damien Castelain, regarding the delivery to his home for 18 000 euros via Eiffage, the builder of the Great Stage, of stones for the construction of a private terrace.
After these requisitions, it is now up to the investigating judge to decide on this reference, but also on the non-place as required by the floor on the rest of the case. Interviewed by Agence France-Presse, the prosecutor’s office did not wish to react in the immediate future. This decision follows the indictment in August of 2019, in this component, Damien Castelain, head of the Metropolis since 2014.
Read also The truths of Damien Castelain
Candidate for re-election
He had already been in review since 2017 for “passive trading in influence side” and “aiding and abetting favoritism” in this investigation on the award of the contract for the stade Pierre-Mauroy to Eiffage in 2008, when he was one of the vice-presidents of the urban community. Mayor various right of the small commune of Péronne-en-Mélantois since 1998, re-elected in the first round at the municipal election of march 15, Damien Castelain should be a candidate for his succession at the head of the metropolis to the end of the second round, on 28 June. His election in 2014, had marked the end of the domination of the socialist Party, who chaired the urban community since its establishment in 1967, while preventing the UMP (now LR) to seize it.
in Addition to Damien Castelain, two former elected officials (Michèle Demessine, former senator PCF North and Henri Ségard, also a former vice-president of the institution) were referred by the judicial information open to favouritism, forgery and use of forgery, corruption and traffic of influence. Two former leaders of Eiffage were also suspected of traffic of influence active, and two officials of the community of forgery and use of forgery. Eiffage was chosen by the urban community, while his project had a cost overrun of € 108.5 million, compared to the, more traditional, Bouygues.
“We’ll go to the end”
source close to the investigation, he was criticized Damien Castelain and Henri Ségard to have been invited by Eiffage to two sporting events abroad, a football match of the team of France in the Euro 2008 and the Grand Prix of Hungary F1 in August 2010. “We will have at least discovered that Damien Castelain was not quite the man right that he should be as an elected representative of the people. But we are not at the end of the folder, it will go up at the end, one will go to challenge, before the chamber of the instruction the fact that Eiffage do not be returned and we will go until cassation for this mountain gives birth not to a mouse”, said Tuesday the Agency France-Presse Eric Darques, civil part.
The lawyer of the president of the metropolis, Florence Rault, had dismissed those charges in April 2017, saying that he had paid for his trip in Switzerland, its earthworks, and that he had been invited in Hungary by friends “who had nothing to do with Eiffage”. Asked Tuesday night by Agence France-Presse, Ms. Rault did not wish to speak. The stade Pierre-Mauroy, located in Villeneuve-d’ascq, northern france and inaugurated in 2012, is an pregnant state of the art 50,000-seat, where mostly the matches of the Losc, football (soccer) club Lille. Damien Castelain is also the subject of a preliminary investigation for misappropriation of public funds for bills including fragrances, wellness services or nights in luxury hotel between 2017 and 2018, amounting to 11 000 euros approximately, depending on the site Médiacités.
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