1 year suspended sentence, at least 80,000 euros fine and 3 years of ineligibility: this is the sentence required, this Wednesday, May 25, by the public prosecutor of Lille against the former Minister Delegate for Small and Medium Enterprises, the northerner Alain Griset. He appeared for breach of trust. He is accused of having placed in his name in 2019 a sum of 130,000 euros belonging to the National Confederation of Crafts, Trades and Services of the North, of which he was president.
“Clumsiness”
Having recovered this sum to invest it in the stock market, Alain Griset readily admits it. For nearly 3 hours at the helm, he defends having done so in good faith, for the good of this confederation which he participated in creating 30 years ago, “with zero cents and zero francs“, he says. Making these 130,000 euros grow, so it was his “assignment“. For it, fastest and most efficient for him, it was to place it on the stock market, on his personal equity savings plan (PEA).
Money therefore from a legal entity which therefore passes into his name and with which he buys shares: “It is a task on the probity expected of a representative of craftsmen“, attacks the prosecutor, who portrays a president”charismatic” and “greedy“, who would have benefited from the trust of colleagues”passive“.
What benefits?
Even if it means taking risks on the stock market with this money that does not belong to him and freeing up €41,000 profits according to Bercy investigators. The former Minister Delegate at Bercy precisely disputes this: for him, it is €19,000, which he has since repaid. “There may have been clumsiness, but neither cheating nor dissimulation“, says Alain Griset. “In this case, I lost money, I lost 90% of my friends, I fell“, he concludes.
His lawyer, Me Patrick Maisonneuve, pleads good faith and total release in this case.
The deliberation of the court is awaited next June 28.
Alain Griset is now retired, he has resigned from the government last December after being given a 6-month suspended prison sentence for failing to declare this amount to the High Authority for Transparency for Public Life when he took office in July 2020. He appealed this decision.