A preliminary investigation for embezzlement of public funds was opened by the Nice prosecutor’s office concerning suspicions of multiple employment by relatives of the president of the Republicans.
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A preliminary investigation for embezzlement of public funds was opened around suspicions of multiple jobs at the Alpes-Maritimes departmental council which may have benefited the president of the Republicans Eric Ciotti, we learned on Monday May 13 from the Nice prosecutor’s office. . According to a report published in December by the regional chamber of accounts (CRC) on the Alpes-Maritimes departmental council, “four cabinet colleagues and two community agents also exercising their functions within the cabinet are, or were, at the same time parliamentary assistants to the National Assembly”.
According to the CRC, the four employees had not taken the necessary steps to comply with the rules for multiple employment imposed on public officials, which in any case did not allow this type of multiple employment for the two community agents. According to the newspaper The world, the four employees work in the service of Eric Ciotti, deputy for Alpes-Maritimes and former president of the departmental council (2008-2017). The CRC report noted, however, that the current president of the local assembly, Charles-Ange Ginésy, close to Eric Ciotti, had assured that the situations had been regularized.
“Save your parliamentary budget”
The anti-corruption association AC!! had contacted the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) in December. “We are in a democracy and not in a royalty with small lords who place their pawns”Marcel Claude, the president of the association, explained to AFP, believing that the cumulative situation had allowed Eric Ciotti “to save one’s parliamentary budget and to afford means that no ordinary MP” could not afford.
The PNF withdrew at the end of December for the benefit of the Nice prosecutor’s office and investigations are underway “as part of a preliminary investigation opened into the charge of embezzlement of public funds”, announced the public prosecutor in Nice Damien Martinelli. Contacted by AFP, Eric Ciotti and the departmental council declined to comment.
