JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER / AFP
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storyThe unfortunate candidate of the right to the presidential elections of 2017, who is to be tried from February 24 to March 11 before the Paris Criminal Court, comes out of his reserve: he is the guest, Thursday, January 30, of “You have the floor” “, On France 2.
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He hands his boarding pass to the Air France hostess and settles into the business cabin. This April 17, 2019, François Fillon has just spent three days in Lebanon for his foundation Act for Christians of the East. While waiting for takeoff, he sadly thinks back to Notre-Dame de Paris, whose devastating fire he followed two days earlier, while he was dining at the port of Beirut. His security officer suddenly brings him out of his reverie: “Robert Bourgi is on the plane! ” Mr. Fillon will later tell a friend: “At that moment, I said to myself: ‘If I meet him, not sure that I will be able not to put my hand in his face.'”
In the worst case, the Franco-Lebanese lawyer, close to Nicolas Sarkozy, who had finished plumbing his campaign by revealing to the press that he had offered Mr. Fillon expensive costumes, was in the same hotel as him, in Beirut. The two men did not meet. This time, François Fillon feels stuck. When a hostess comes to offer him an upgrade first, next to an empty seat, he hesitates: “It’s nice, but I prefer my place alone in business. “ The hostess smiles and murmurs elegantly: “Rest easy, Prime Minister. Mr. Bourgi is in business. ”
Almost three years after the presidential fiasco, the unfortunate candidate of the right remains haunted by the politico-judicial tragedy which, he thinks, cost him the Elysee. He will be tried from February 24 to March 11 before the Paris Criminal Court in the case of alleged fictitious jobs which his wife, Penelope, allegedly benefited from when he was a member of parliament. The former prime minister will have to answer for “Embezzlement of public funds”, “complicity and concealment” of this crime, “Complicity and concealment of abuse of social goods”, as well as “Breach of the reporting obligations of the High Authority for the transparency of public life”.
A major deadline, which decided him to leave his reserve: Thursday, January 30, he is the guest of “You have the floor”, on France 2. Mr. Fillon prepared this return with his communicator, Anne Méaux, the influential patron of Image 7, her pen and advisor for thirty years, Igor Mitrofanoff, and his lawyer, Antonin Lévy. A strategy meeting was held on January 16 at the agency’s offices. “There is an impatience with him to be able to explain himself directly and not before a judge, some of whose words are leaking without him being able to defend himself, explains Me Lévy. He wants to speak without intermediaries, to tell his truth. “
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