Three allies of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy were on Friday April 3rd placed under formal investigation over the wide-ranging Bygmalion election funding scandal, reports Mediapart.
This affair involves claims that communications firm Bygmalion falsely billed the right-wing UMP party for 17 million euros to avoid Sarkozy's 2012 presidential campaign busting election spending limits.
The trio, Guillaume Lambert, a prefect and director of Sarkozy's election campaign in 2012, Philippe Briand, MP, the president of the campaign's funding association, and Philippe Blanchetier, a lawyer and treasurer of the campaign, had all been detained for questioning since Wednesday April 1st. The development brings to 25 the number of Sarkozy allies and associates who have been placed under formal investigation by examining magistrates over a variety of alleged finance-related crimes. Being placed under investigation is one step short of being charged.
Lambert, who was removed from his position as prefect of the département or county of Lozère in southern France as soon as the formal investigation was announced, is being probed over alleged “use of false instruments”, “fraud”, “receiving the proceeds of an abuse of trust” and “collusion in the illegal funding of an election campaign”. Briand and Blanchetier are being investigated for the same alleged offences.
Six others were placed under formal investigation in the Bygmalion in the autumn of 2014, including Éric Cesari, the UMP's former managing director who is close to former president Sarkozy.
For the background to the Bygmalion affair see here.
For a list of the other Sarkozy allies under investigation see here (in French).