the prosecution opens an investigation for “fraud”

An investigation was opened on Wednesday for “fraud” after the complaint of the couple of deputies La France insoumise Raquel Garrido and Alexis Corbière, wrongly implicated in an article in the Point finally withdrawn, announced Thursday, June 30 the Paris prosecutor’s office, confirming information from BFMTV.

Last week, Point had published an article which unduly accused the couple of having exploited an undocumented cleaning lady, which he immediately strongly denied: “Everything is false”, had protested the deputies. Very rare fact, the article had been removed the next day from the site of the Point. In an address to its readers, the newspaper admitted on Tuesday that the article had “turned out to be false” and “to lie”.

Point invoked a “external smoking, first” in writing : “people probably tried to sell a false story to discredit Raquel Garrido and Alexis Corbière”. The weekly also explained that the screenshots of the text messages allegedly exchanged between the false employee and Raquel Garrido, and published by the journalist, “constituted a rough montage”.

At the same time, Point opened an internal investigation. The author of the article, Aziz Zemouri, was laid off and summoned to an interview prior to a possible dismissal. The two deputies had for their part filed two complaints, including one against X for “forgery and use of forgery” and “identity theft”.

On Tuesday, journalist Aziz Zemouri for his part filed a complaint against former UDI MP Jean-Christophe Lagarde, opponent of Raquel Garrido in the second round of the last legislative elections, and an ex-policeman. Aziz Zemouri asserts that the latter, “who would be seconded to the town hall of Drancy”whose mayor is the wife of Jean-Christophe Lagarde, had contacted him at the end of May to put him in touch with a woman claiming to be the cleaning lady, undeclared and without papers, of the couple of LFI deputies.