The timing could hardly be worse for Olivier Dussopt. Mediapart has learnt that the labour minister, who is in the political and media front line over the French government's controversial pension reforms, recently received a damning report from the financial crimes prosecution unit the Parquet National Financier (PNF) concerning his dealings with the major water company SAUR.
The report suspects the minister of the offence of “favouritism” when he was a mayor of a town in the south-east of France. The politician, who denies there was any “arrangement” with the company, could now face trial over the affair if the justice system agrees that there is a case to answer based on these findings.
News of the PNF report, which was quick to spread within government circles, is a huge embarrassment for President Emmanuel Macron and prime minister Élisabeth Borne, with the minister in charge of explaining and steering the pension reforms now facing formal accusations over his probity, just as the government has to deal with huge protests on the streets against the pension plans.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Yet the fact that Olivier Dussopt has been targeted by the financial affairs prosecutors should come as no surprise to the government. After Mediapart's initial revelations about water company SAUR's generosity towards Olivier Dussopt, the PNF launched a preliminary investigation in June 2020 to examine the exact relations between the privately-owned group and the politician when he was both a local Member of Parliament and mayor of the town of Annonay in the south-eastern département or county of Ardèche.
At the time of those revelations Olivier Dussopt was junior minister in charge of the civil service. He was promoted to labour minister in May 2022 after the last presidential election when the legal investigation was already under way.
Mediapart's investigation described how in 2017 Olivier Dussopt had been given two works by his favourite painter, Gérard Garouste, by an executive at SAUR. At the time the company had a commercial relationship with the town council, which was headed by Dussopt. Having initially told Mediapart that the artworks were a present from a “friend” - something the “friend” denied - the minister ended up acknowledging that they were a “gift from the company” and said he would return the paintings.
After a legal assessment, the PNF took the view that the value of the Garouste lithographs – less than 1,000 euros in total – was not great enough to qualify it as a potential corruption offence as had been initially envisaged. But the prosecution authorities discovered that this gift was in fact part of a long and potentially compromising relationship that Olivier Dussopt had with Saur.
During a search carried out at the minister's home, detectives from the anti-corruption squad OCLCIFF came across messages between Olivier Dussopt and the company that appeared to leave little room for doubt over the existence of an arrangement over a public contract dating from 2009-2010, according to Mediapart's information.
Period allowed for opposing arguments
The PNF ended their investigations in the autumn of 2022 and then began a process in which Olivier Dussopt and his lawyers were able to put forward their side of the argument. It was after that period ended that the prosecutors wrote their report, coming to the conclusion that in their view the offence of favouritism had been committed by the minister. This was the document that Olivier Dussopt received recently.
Under France's criminal law code, the offence of favouritism, which comes under the heading of ethical breaches, is punishable by up to two years imprisonment and a fine of up to 200,000 euros. Like anyone under legal suspicion, Olivier Dussopt is presumed to be innocent.
When approached by Mediapart about the accusation hanging over him, the minister had not responded by the time this article went online. He later confirmed Mediapart's information to the Agence France Presse (AFP) news agency, though he sought to portray the offence of favouritism as a mere “formality”, which is not the case. On February 4th he told France Inter radio that he disputed any notion of an “arrangement” with SAUR. Noting that the PNF had decided not to proceed over any suggestions of corruption or self-enrichment on his part, Olivier Dussopt told the public broadcaster in relation to the favouritism claims: “It's an assertion, a thesis, that I dispute, and I have just one desire … and that's to continue to convince and explain what happened to convince of my good faith.”
On February 3rd prime minister Élisabeth Borne said that she maintained “full confidence” in her labour minister.
When contacted by Mediapart the water company SAUR, which also received the PNF report – it is suspected of being the recipient of the alleged offence - did not respond. However, in a statement later the group confirmed it had received the PNF report and noted that any action against it was based solely on events that took place in 2009. “All the other facts investigated by the PNF were dropped,” it said. The water company said that “the remaining action against it, nearly 15 years after the event, is not justified” and it said that it would defend itself should the matter go before a court.
The PNF made no comment.
SAUR is the third largest French water company behind Veolia and Suez. It has an annual turnover of 1.6 billion euros and employs more than 11,000 people across the world.
As Mediapart has already reported, the company has had close links with the town of Annonay for several decades and supplied the community's water for many years. But after an unfavourable report by the regional audit watchdog in 1998, and under pressure from the local water consumers' group, the Association des usagers de l’eau de la région d’Annonay, Olivier Dussopt, elected mayor in 2008, did not renew the private lease with SAUR when it came to an end in 2009.
Instead, the newly-elected mayor adopted a public service legal status for the town's water services, while at the same time signing a five-year subcontracting deal with SAUR under the new public service regime to pump and supply local water. This deal, which was renewed in 2016, provoked the ire of the local water users' association who described the new arrangement as a “sleight of hand”. It said that “the whole operation will be subcontracted” and warned that the community would be back in a situation of “huge dependency”.
In 2011 the same association also said it was concerned that SAUR was sponsoring the “letter” sent out to local residents by Dussopt, who was both local MP and mayor. “It's shocking because in the end it's actually the customer who pays for this advertising through their water bill, and by choosing to fund his publications in this way the mayor of Annonay has become prisoner of a certain logic,” the association said in a statement. The minister had distanced himself from this publication, which was produced by a “company specialising in publishing such publications”.
When he took part in a Mediapart broadcast in 2017, Olivier Dussopt took the view that any elected representative who was convicted after “using their prerogatives to enrich themselves, to hijack, stray from and sully the public interest and tarnish the general interest … that should disqualify them”.
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter
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