Explain to us the PNF, the national financial prosecutor’s office

Le Havre town hall was searched on Wednesday April 3 as part of the investigation which notably targets Édouard Philippe, the former Prime Minister. An investigation opened by the PNF, a judicial institution specializing in tax fraud.

The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) specializes in tracking down tax fraud and economic and financial delinquency. It was created on December 6, 2013, under the five-year term of François Hollande, while socialist power was shaken by the Cahuzac affair, the Budget Minister who defrauded the tax authorities and placed money in Switzerland.

The PNF is located at the Paris Court, Porte de Clichy. It has around forty people: 20 magistrates, supported by specialized assistants and clerks. The magistrates always work in pairs to have a cross-view on particularly complex cases.

It deals with four main categories of offenses: tax fraud aggravated by VAT, cases of corruption, illegal taking of interest, misappropriation of public funds, influence peddling, insider trading or the dissemination of false information on the stock market and finally attacks on free competition.

Some 800 investigations, 500 convictions…

Currently, the PNF is piloting nearly 800 investigations. En 10 years, he opened 3,200 files (Fillon, Sarkozy, Cahuzac file), resulting in more than 500 convictions. Under the leadership of the PNF, judicial agreements have been concluded with large groups so that they pay fines when they commit offenses, this is the case with Airbus, Google and McDonald’s, for example.

All this brings money to the state. In 10 years, 12 billion euros have been collected, not counting seizures, which still represent more than a billion euros.

Critics of the PNF

The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office has also been criticized on several occasions by certain politicians who denounced a politicization of the work of magistrates or pressures from those in power. Lhe boss of the Republicans, Éric Ciotti, requested the removal of the prosecution. And the Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, had ordered an investigation against PNF magistrates, whose barbouze methods he denounced. The head of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office, Jean-François Bohnert, assures that he has never been pressured.