“Questioned” but “presumed innocent”.
As the Public Prosecutor of Marseille recalls, Nicolas Bessone, the placement in police custody of ten people, including the Estrosi-Tenoudji couple, the boss of the newspaper La Tribune or the president of the France Télévisions group, does not prejudge their guilt.
The investigation entrusted last August to the gendarmes of the research section of the Marseille city will continue. The accused lawyers will now have access to the file, announces Nicolas Bessone. There is no doubt that they will assert their arguments in defense.
Without waiting, Christian Estrosi assures that he has committed “no breach, no fault”.
Early “plausible” charges have nevertheless justified his placement in police custody for almost 1 pm. What do we blame the mayor of Nice? Why was he heard so long? What will happen now? When will we know the outcome of this file? What fate could he know? In the aftermath of this politico-judicial thunder shot we take stock.
1. What do we reproach the mayor of Nice and his wife?
Justice wonders about the conditions under which subsidies have been allocated by the communities administered by Christian Estrosi to several events that have been held in the Riviera capital between 2018 and 2023. Whether the successive editions of Nice Climate Summit, co-organized by the newspaper La Tribune, or different programs of France Télévisions, rang and 2019 in the Junior Eurovision competition 2 years ago.
Each time these events have benefited from public subsidies. Direct and indirect aid (in the form of unchanged services) which for Nice Climate Summit of 2023 and Eurovision the same year flirted with the million euros. However, in both cases, the wife of the mayor of Nice, journalist Laura Tenoudji, was in contact with the organizers. The columnist has been employed by France Télévisions for over 20 years and has also worked professionally with La Tribune.
Justice seeks to know if the status of Laura Tenoudji was able to influence the decisions of the communities administered by Christian Estrosi. And if in return the journalist was able to take personal profit from the municipal and metropolitan subsidies allocated to her employers. What she categorically refutes.
2. How did the case started?
As soon as he left police custody on Monday evening, Christian Estrosi gave a “political” dimension to this affair. The mayor of Nice pointed out “unscrupulous elected officials” who “do not hesitate to attack [sa] family, [son] wife “.” Suspected everything because I do politics, “denounces the councilor. Online in sight, three of his opponents. Juliette Chesnel-Le Roux, Jean-Christophe Picard and Fabrice Decoupigny, elected officials of the ecological group within the municipal council, had co-signed on September 27, 2023 a letter to the prosecutor of the Republic of Nice denouncing facts which, according to them. “likely to be qualified on the criminal level”.
If this report undoubtedly contributed to the opening of a preliminary investigation transferred in early 2024 to the specialized interregional jurisdiction of Marseille (Jirs), it is clearly not the only one. In a press release, the public prosecutor of the Marseille city, Nicolas Bessone, specifies this Tuesday that the investigations in progress make “following several reports and complaints transmitted to the Nice prosecution in September and December 2023”.
3. Why were Christian Estrosi and his wife been placed in police custody?
A total of ten people were heard on Monday by the gendarmes of the Marseille research section. Including the mayor of Nice and his wife, but also the boss of France Télévisions, Delphine Ernotte, and the president of La Tribune, Jean-Christophe Tortora. All under the police regime. “A constraint measure,” said the Criminal Code of Criminal Procedure, aimed at making a person “available to investigators”, but who can only be exercised if there is one or more plausible reasons to suspect that she has committed or tried to commit a crime or an offense punishable by imprisonment “.
It therefore takes sufficient elements to justify such a deprivation of freedom. Indeed, the duration of a free hearing cannot exceed 4 hours. However, the mayor of Nice and his wife, like all of the people summoned had to answer questions from the gendarmes from 8:30 am until more than 10:30 pm for some of them. Or more than twelve hours.
4. Why was there no legal proceedings?
And yet, all the accused emerged free after their edition, as confirmed by the Marseille prosecutor’s office. “Without the slightest prosecution” notified against them underline my Mathias Chichportich, the lawyer of Christian Estrosi, or even Claudia Chemarin, to the interests of Delphine Ernotte, the president of France Télévisions. Does this mean that the answers provided by the various protagonists of this case were enough to dispel the suspicions which, the same morning, had however justified their placement in police custody? Not necessarily.
The prosecutor Nicolas Bessone indicates that the investigation will, in fact, enter a new phase, with the transmission of the procedure to the lawyers “within the framework of its opening to the contradictory”. Under article 77.2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure The latter will therefore have the possibility of formulating all observations which would seem useful to them “. “On the regularity of the procedure, on the qualification of the facts that can be retained, on the possibly insufficient nature of the investigation”, or even “on the need to carry out new acts which would be necessary for the manifestation of the truth …”
5. When will the respondents fixed on their fate?
The press release from the Marseille prosecution specifies that lawyers “will have a period of 2 months from its reception to present observations”. Some might ask that additional investigations, such as hearings for example, be carried out. Others may be tempted to challenge the validity of the procedure. Acts which can extend the period at the end of which “the public prosecutor will decide on” this file. Especially since the electoral calendar, and the elections looming, could encourage to play extensions on a procedural level.
6. What could be the outcome of this case?
At the end of this contradictory debate, several possibilities open technically. Either the prosecution considers, ultimately, that the charges are not sufficiently constituted to enter into the process and it ultimately delivers a classification notice without follow -up. In this case the case will have made “Pschitt”. Or he believes that even further investigations are necessary and he requests the opening of judicial information. One or more judges would then be appointed to supervise the investigation of the file. This nevertheless seems unlikely given the magnitude of the acts already carried out (searches, auditions …).
There remains one last possibility: the referral of all or part of the defendants before the criminal court to judge whether or not they have broken the law.
7. What would be the sorrows incurred?
The Marseille prosecutor said, this Tuesday, the nature of the crimes referred to by the current survey. These are “the heads of illegal taking of interests, embezzlement of public funds, concealment, false in an authentic act by depositary person and public authority and use”. If they were formed, the maximum penalties incurred range from 5 to 10 years in prison and exhibit their authors to fines of 150,000 maximum for the “false in public writing” up to 1 million euros for the “embezzlement of public funds”.
8. Has we opened the legal pandora box?
A final question raised by this case is more psychological springs than the code of criminal procedure. If this is the first time, on the eve of his 70th anniversary and after three consecutive terms, that the mayor of the fifth city of France finds himself placed in police custody, his administration nevertheless faces several procedures in progress. In recent months the searches have multiplied in town hall. Business of the statues of Orlinsky, works of the storm Alex, Grand Prix of F1 in Le Castellet, security of July 14 … are all legal files always open.
