The former Minister of Labor, Muriel Pénicaud, assured on Saturday that she had “not Nothing » to « to reproach » after the revelation of his indictment for complicity in favoritism in the investigation into a large evening organized in 2016 in Las Vegas at the request of Emmanuel Macron, who had met hundreds of French entrepreneurs there.
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The indictment, revealed by The world Friday December 22, date from last October. Muriel Pénicaud, the former Minister of LaborEmmanuel Macron (2017-2020), was indicted for “ complicity of favoritism » as part of the judicial investigation opened in March 2017 by the Paris prosecutor’s office. This measure comes in the context of the Business France affair, the key point of which was an evening organized in Las Vegas at the beginning of January 2016.
It is as former director general of the public organization promoting the French economy abroad, dependent on Bercy, that Ms. Pénicaud is indicted. During a stay by future President Emmanuel Macron, then Minister of the Economy, in January 2016, a delegation went to the American city of Las Vegas, to meet hundreds of French entrepreneurs, at the time of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), high mass of technological innovation. The idea displayed is to highlight high-tech and French start-ups.
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To set up this operation, costing around 300,000 euros, urgently and under pressure from the minister’s office, Business France had entrusted it entirely to the Havas Paris agency, without resorting to the competitive bidding provided for by the public procurement code for such sums. It was a critical report from the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) transmitted by Bercy which led the Paris prosecutor’s office to open the investigation in March 2017, then entrusted to three investigating magistrates. The judges notified the end of the investigations in 2019, but various procedural appeals have taken place since then.
“ My integrity is total, I am serene, I have a clear conscience. […] because I simply have nothing to reproach myself for », Supported the former minister in a message sent to AFP. “ Since the beginning of this affair, I have been exonerated by an audit report, the general inspectorate of finances, three investigating judges, the prosecutor, the Paris Court of Appeal, the Court of Auditors “, she added.
(With AFP)