The Minister of Transport Philippe Tabarot is the subject of a preliminary investigation for embezzlement of public funds and illegal taking of interests following a report from the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life (HATVP) in July 2021, indicated Monday January 13 a judicial source, confirming information from the World.
This investigation, also opened for concealment of these two offenses by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), concerns the positions occupied by Philippe Tabarot within the tourist and cultural public interest group (GIP) then in communication for the municipality of Cannet (Alpes-Maritimes) between 2018 and 2020. This town of 40,000 inhabitants was led between 1995 and 2017 by her sister, MP LR Michèle Tabarot.
“A search took place on November 30, 2022 at the home of Philippe Tabarot and in the premises of the Cannet town hall and the Cannet GIP,” added the judicial source. “The preliminary investigation is still ongoing,” she said.
137,872 euros net in 2019
According to the declaration of interests registered on November 30, 2020 and consulted by The WorldPhilippe Tabarot was director of the GIP from April 2018 to July 2020 and received 82,473 euros net for this position in 2019, or nearly 6,900 euros per month. Then he was paid 17,997 euros net between August and November 2020, or nearly 4,500 euros per month, as project manager of this GIP for the tourist and cultural development of the town of Le Cannet.
At the same time, in 2019, he was paid 15,318 euros as communications manager for this municipality, or 1,276 euros per month. At that time, he was also elected to the regional council of Provence-Alpes-Côté d’Azur and received around 40,000 euros net per year as vice-president in charge of transport between 2015 and 2021. The new minister declared, still according to the daily, 137,872 euros net for the year 2019 alone.
The new Minister of Transport Philippe Tabarot, elected LR senator for Alpes-Maritimes in September 2020, is a specialist in the sector: he defended a text to regulate the right to strike in the railways before the Olympic Games, and is in favor of a hard line when it comes to security.
At the regional council, this 54-year-old from Cannes had managed the file for the privatization of the TER line between Marseille and Nice, the operation of which had been entrusted in 2021 to the Transdev group, to the great dismay of the unions. It was then a first in France.