6:30 am this Monday, Christian Estrosi and his wife Laura Tenoudji leave Nice by car. They are both summoned to Fréjus (Var), by the gendarmes of the research section responsible for investigating a potential “illegal taking of interest” of the couple. Their lawyers accompany them. Mes Matthias Chichportich for the mayor of Nice, and Marie-Alix Canu-Bernard, for the employee of France Télévisions.
At the same time, the owner of the audiovisual group, Delphine Ernotte, was summoned to Marseille, the seat of the specialized interregional jurisdiction which resumed this drawing file with drawers initiated, at the end of 2023, by the Nice prosecutor’s office following two distinct reports. The boss of CMA Media and director of The platformJean-Christophe Tortora, was also asked to appear before the gendarmes. Twelve hours later, his mobile phone is still on messaging.
Because it’s been twelve hours already that all the protagonists of this double affair are in police custody. It concerns two events organized in Nice in 2023. Nice Climate Summit, September 28 and 29, of which The platform was the main partner, and the organization by France Télévisions, still in the Riviera capital, of the 24e Junior Eurovision competition on November 20.
Two demonstrations on the program of which the name of Laura Tenoudji-Estrosi appeared. The journalist had to animate two round tables of the Nice Climate Summit, before giving up in the face of the controversy raised by this participation.
And the show of the show Télématin had co -gelted the opening ceremony of the Junior Eurovision organized at the Negresco Hotel … in the city administered by her husband. And while public funding had been allocated to these two events by the public authorities which Christian Estrosi presides over.
Almost a million euros in municipal aid
Cumulated, the subsidies granted to two events by the Nice municipality flirt with the million euros.
In their report to the prosecution, the three opposition elected officials of the ecological group detailed the amount of public subsidies voted for the Nice Climate Summit: “Direct aid of 171,175 euros and an indirect aid of 150,000 euros”endorsed by deliberation n ° 3.2 of the municipal council of June 14, 2023.
The session report specified that “Christian Estrosi did not take part in the vote”. A mention qualified as “Landy” by the three opponents who affirm in their report that the mayor of Nice “did not leave the session and did not deport” That day.
Their missive to the public prosecutor of Nice, dated September 27, 2023, had been followed by another, this time emanating from an official of the municipal administration. This “whistleblower” also invoked article 40 which obliges any public agent to bring to the attention of justice any offense of which he is the witness.
In this case another potential illegal takeover of interest, this time, the organization of the Junior Eurovision which had taken up residence in Nice in the following month. Again, the event took advantage of subsidies: 605,000 euros including about half in the form of direct aid. That is to say of sounding and stumbling money, drawn from the municipal budget, and the rest in the form of unchanged services.
“As part of my work”, according to Laura Tenoudji-Estrosi
Should we see a potential conflict of interest? The web columnist of the show Télématin Since the early 2000s has been defending it. Laura Tenoudji had not hesitated to qualify as “ridicules” these accusations in an interview with Nice-Matin in December 2023.
The wife of the mayor of Nice then explained that he had drawn no personal profit from these two demonstrations. “Regarding the Nice Climate Summit, she declared at the time, the gallery [co-organisateur du sommet] asked me to animate two round tables. Because I had already collaborated with this newspaper, that it was in Nice and that I was in my ecosystem, namely everything related to innovation and the environment. But it was voluntary! There could therefore be the slightest conflict of interest. “
No more for the co-animation of the Junior Eurovision broadcast by France Télévisions of which she has been employed for “Over twenty years “. It is for this reason that her employer would have requested her “Three weeks before” so that she participates in the show. “I don’t see how I could have refused, Retorted the journalist on the occasion of this interview. It was within the framework of my work. There was no endorsement to my contract. And besides, at the time, all checks had been made by France Télévisions to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. “
This is precisely what the investigators who, for thirteen hours, wanted to question the Estrosi-Ventoudji couple among the ten protagonists of this case that had been summoned on Monday.
Business above all “policy”, According to the mayor’s lawyer. “If he respects the legitimate work of the investigators, my client denounces the political instrumentalization of the justice to which his opponents engages. He recalls that a complaint in slanderous denunciation has been filed against them”.
