Éric Ciotti: investigation opened for embezzlement of public funds, in the middle of the legislative campaign

After putting himself on the sidelines of LR by announcing an alliance with the RN in the legislative elections, Éric Ciotti is now the subject of an investigation for embezzlement of public funds.

New explosion in Eric Ciotti’s campaign in the legislative elections. An investigation has been opened against the boss of the LR for embezzlement of public funds, Franceinfo revealed this Monday, the opening day of the official electoral campaign. The investigation, opened on May 30, concerns possible irregularities during his 2022 legislative campaign. The Nice prosecutor’s office received a report from the Anticor association, concerning the misuse of parking cards from the port of Nice that had been updated. provided free of charge by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry for relatives of Eric Ciotti.

“It’s yet another stink ball thrown by a competing candidate, who lost the elections in 2022 and who is now correspondent for the Anticor office,” Eric Ciotti’s campaign director immediately reacted. In January, another preliminary investigation for embezzlement of public funds was opened due to suspicions of multiple jobs at the Alpes-Maritimes departmental council, which may have benefited Eric Ciotti.

The campaign is not at its first turmoil: since Eric Ciotti’s announcement of an alliance with the National Rally in the legislative elections, the boss of LR has alienated the majority of his own party. He was even the subject of an exclusion procedure, which has so far been invalidated by the courts.

The exclusion of Eric Ciotti suspended by the courts

“The Paris judicial court has suspended my exclusion from the Republicans. I therefore continue to exercise my functions as president,” rejoiced Eric Ciotti on Friday on X after the court’s announcement at around 8 p.m. It is difficult to speak of a real outcome at Les Républicains as the situation remains complicated. A few hours after Eric Ciotti’s announcement of an alliance with the RN, Wednesday June 12, a political office voted unanimously for his exclusion. But this political bureau had not been assembled according to the procedure provided for in the party statutes. Eric Ciotti therefore decided not to take it into account.

“Justice has spoken,” rejoiced Eric Ciotti on BFMTV on Friday. “I had no doubts because what was done was quite crude. You can’t just do anything, you can’t do DIY.” From now on, “it’s time for the campaign, it’s time for this alliance of the rights that I wanted so that tomorrow we beat the extreme left”, added the president of the Republicans while his camp has literally turned its back on him for several days.

Concretely, the court ordered Friday “the suspension of the effects of the two definitive exclusions pronounced against Éric Ciotti on June 12 and 14”, specifying however that this suspension was only valid “until the pronouncement of a decision on final basis”. The jurisdiction “on the merits” will be seized “within eight days” from June 14, the court indicated. As summarized on franceinfo by Eric Ciotti’s lawyer, this court decision is only an “interim decision”. A decision taken urgently, but which does not constitute a final judgment. To know the end of the story, we will have to wait “a year for the decision on the merits, and then a year later for the appeal”, estimated Mr. Philippe Torre, Eric Ciotti’s lawyer, on franceinfo , affirming that the Republicans opposed to Eric Ciotti in this conflict “will multiply the procedures to agitate”.

What LR-RN alliance?

62 candidates in the legislative elections receive the double LR-RN nomination, Eric Ciotti announced this Monday, June 17. The alliance with Jordan Bardella’s party is therefore continuing its course, away from the historic LR line and its candidates. Eric Ciotti will therefore not have an RN candidate facing him in the 1st constituency of the Alpes-Maritimes. He was followed in his movement by another deputy from the department, Christelle d’Intorni, as well as by the president of the Young Republicans, Guilhem Carayon, who is running in Tarn. The outgoing deputy Meyer Habib, in the 8th constituency of French people established outside France, is also following the movement. Also note the candidacy of several CNews columnists under this double nomination: Guillaume Bigot, Sébastien Laye, Philippe Fontana and Charles Prats. A former Macronist MP, Typhanie Degois, also joined the alliance and is running in Savoie.

Explosion of the Les Républicains party

The president of the Republicans had proposed an alliance between his party and the far right of the National Rally on the set of TF1 news on June 11. A real outcry which imploded the party, deeply dividing its ranks between, on the one hand, those who support this agreement with Jordan Bardella with a view to the early legislative elections, and on the other, those who violently oppose it, tenors LR in the lead. Opponents of a rapprochement with the far right being in the majority.

After refusing to resign, Éric Ciotti announced, through a party press release, that the political bureau convened on Wednesday afternoon did not meet “the political requirements of our statutes and our internal regulations”. The statutes provide that a political bureau can only be convened by the president or at the request of a quarter of the members of the National Council.

The deputy went so far as to lock himself inside the Republican headquarters after ordering all the permanent staff to leave the building. “I hear a lot of nonsense about the closure of the LR headquarters,” wrote Éric Ciotti around 1 p.m. on Furthermore, no meeting was ever scheduled at headquarters this afternoon.”

But the members of the political bureau still met not far from LR headquarters, in the 7th arrondissement, to decide despite everything on the fate of their boss. “We’re among the crazy,” Aurélien Pradié lamented to the press: “We’re in a democracy: people who lock themselves in an office and say: ‘I’ll never come out,’ don’t exist .” And the LR deputy joked: “We have until Sunday to organize a CNI (investiture committee, Editor’s note), we will call the Samu, we will call Jordan Bardella to get him out of his office.”