Alain Griset resigns from his post as Minister for SMEs, after his conviction for incomplete declaration of his assets

The Minister Delegate in charge of SMEs, Alain Griset, resigned from the government on Wednesday, December 8, a few hours after being sentenced to six months in prison suspended and three years of suspended ineligibility as well. The Paris Criminal Court had recognized him guilty of “incomplete or false declaration” of his patrimonial situation.

Alain Griset was on trial for having deliberately concealed from the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life (HATVP) the holding of a stock savings plan of 171,000 euros, as well as “direct participations” in several companies such as Française des Jeux or Natixis. The minister’s lawyer, absent at the hearing, Me Patrick Maisonneuve, immediately announced that he was going to appeal this conviction.

The court was less severe than the requisitions of the prosecution, which demanded against the minister from ten to twelve months suspended imprisonment and a three-year ineligibility sentence without suspension which, he had specified at the hearing, would have trained “automatically the prohibition to exercise public functions”.

In delivering its judgment, the court held that Alain Griset “had chosen to conceal a substantial part of his heritage” and noted two aggravating elements: the funds in question were hosted in a French bank and he “shows a real desire for concealment”. In government since July 2020, Alain Griset was the incumbent prime minister to appear before a criminal court.