When the prominent French billionaire industrialist Serge Dassault died in March 2018 at the age of 93 it meant he escaped the clutches of the law. But the alleged system of electoral corruption - dubbed by some the “Dassault System” - that he put in place in the town of Corbeil-Essonnes south of Paris where he was mayor for many years is still set to have its day in court.
Mediapart has learnt that on August 29th investigating judge Serge Tournaire signed an order sending seven people allegedly involved in that system to stand trial, including the current mayor of the town Jean-Pierre Bechter who is charged with “vote buying” and “illegal financing of an electoral campaign”.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Judge Tournaire's decision to charge the seven comes after six years of investigation into the elections held in the town in 2008, 2009 and 2010. In effect the entire system put in place by the late industrialist and former mayor of Corbeil-Essonnes will go on trial. However, it is still possible for one, some or all of the defendants to contest the judge's decision before the court of appeal.
In the 37-page judge's order, a copy of which has been seen by Mediapart, Judge Tournaire describes what he calls an “endeavour of widespread corruption of the electorate ….which was carried out to what is without doubt an unprecedented degree during the elections of 2009 and 2010 won by Jean-Pierre Bechter”.
The town's former deputy mayor Cristela de Oliveira, who had received 450,000 euros from Dassault, has been sent for trial for receiving illegal financing of a municipal election campaign, illegal funding of her legislative election campaign in 2012 and laundering the proceeds of tax fraud.
The judge has also sent for trial two people who were allegedly key figures in the system used to distribute the money: Gérard Limat, Dassault's Swiss accountant and the man who handled his offshore accounts and supplied the cash, as well as Jacques Lebigre, Dassault's closest aide in Corbeil, and who was nicknamed “the bagman”.
In addition three of the main alleged election 'agents' or fixers, who came from the town's more rundown estates, have also been sent for trial, for laundering the proceeds of tax fraud, and complicity in the laundering and receipt of illegal financing of an election campaign. They are: Mounir Labidi, who became known for having stolen the notebook in which Dassault recorded his donations; Machiré Gassama, director of youth and sports in Corbeil; and Younes Bounouara, Dassault's top agent in the town's housing estates and who is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence for having tried to murder Fatah Hou, who had turned against the 'system'.
All the accused deny any wrongdoing. They say that the money that some of them received from Serge Dassault was simply financial aid and that the money distributed to the inhabitants of Corbeil was given out of generosity on the part of the billionaire and was not aimed at influencing the electorate.
Serge Dassault was boss of the aeronautics and defence firm Dassault Aviation, a senator for the right-wing Les Républicains party and owner of the right-leaning newspaper Le Figaro. He was elected mayor of Corbeil-Essonnes in 1995, a post he held for 13 years. According to the judge the “investigation has shown that in order to win and hold on to the town hall … Serge Dassault drew significantly on his personal fortune to distribute money” to the electors “but also to pay, using more and more sophisticated and opaque techniques, some 'activists' charged with carrying out lobbying operations in the [town's] districts”. This was in order to win the election in 2008 then to get his protégé Jean-Pierre Bechter elected in 2009 and 2010.
The money came in particular from funds stashed away in Dassault's offshore accounts in Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein managed by his loyal Swiss accountant Gérard Limat. Over 14 years he delivered the small matter of 47 million euros in cash wrapped in plastic bags to Dassault in his Paris office.
The investigation has established that Dassault spend 6.3 million euros in hidden funds for the 2009 election, which is 74 times the legal campaign spending limit of 84,000 euros. The amount was even greater in 2010 with a total of 8.7 million euros being spent.
The order sending the accused to face trial details the many ploys used by Dassault to distribute the money, which have already been revealed by the book Dassault Système, co-written by the current author Yann Philippin. These tricks included: cash donations, funding projects and paying for people's driving licences, and fake loans turned into donations. There was also an offshore stash of cash in Lebanon where the alleged head of the 'agents' in the housing estates, Younes Bounouara, went to fetch 2 million euros.
Even though his death last year ended any criminal proceedings against Serge Dassault himself, Judge Tournaire begins his order by setting out why the billionaire should have faced trial for vote buying. “Despite taking refuge behind an often failing memory” [Dassault] had “not really disputed the handing over of money in different forms”, notes the judge, who makes it clear he does not believe the billionaire's suggestion he was acting out of “disinterested generosity”.
To justify some of the payments he made, Serge Dassault also suggested he was the victim of racketeering. “Taking account of his personality, of his influence in French political and economic life and in the state apparatus for decades, of the protection that surrounded him, this argument does not appear very convincing,” writes Judge Tournaire. The judge is sure that, on the contrary, it was Dassault's handing out of money which “ended up causing problems about how it was shared out among the different networks of agents, fuelling threats and recriminations against him”.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
Jean-Pierre Bechter, an employee at Dassault who became his boss's “straw mayor” in 2009 when Dassault's election as mayor the year before had been struck down because of “financial donations”, is also heavily criticised in the judge's order. The judge writes that Bechter had “indisputably benefited from unlawful payments which Serge Dassault had made for the two elections in 2009 and 2010 that he won”.
Several witness statements taken during the course of the investigation show that Bechter knew about the payment system and took part in it. “He had to have known of the old and notorious practices of his employer and political patron Serge Dassault, which involved drawing limitlessly on his personal fortune to buy electors and activists,” writes Judge Tournaire.
The judge's order also notes that Bechter – the current mayor – received a 250,000-euro loan from Dassault two months before the 2010 election, a loan which was changed to a donation the following year. “In view of the date of this loan” and the “financial difficulties” faced by Bechter – who had to go back on the campaign grail again at Dassault's request after the previous year's vote was annulled – this payment “can only be seen as a disguised electoral donation” concludes the judges.
Finally, the judge spends some time dwelling on the almost mafia-like climate that the 'Dassault System' promoted on Corbeil's rundown estates. “This clientelist downward spiral, fed beyond all reason by Serge Dassault's colossal fortune, created an unhealthy atmosphere … it caused rivalries, jealousies and tensions”.
This tension culminated with the attempted murder by Dassault's alleged key agent, Younes Bourouara, of Fatah Hou, who had started condemning the system after a member of his family had not been paid what they had been owed for one of the election campaigns. Hou only just escaped with his life. Another alleged electoral 'agent', Rachid Toumi, was also shot at while he was driving through the streets of Corbeil.
In addition to Serge Dassault, one other key player will be absent from the trial. Mamadou Kébé was found hanged on January 5th 2019 in the middle of the Tarterêts estate in Corbeil where he was from. According to a legal source the post mortem examination showed nothing suspicious about his death. Kébé had been placed under formal investigation in the affair and had provided one of the most detailed statements about the Dassault System. He described how groups of 'agents' patrolled the estates to convince voters and promise them various advantages.
As L’Express, magazine has revealed, six months before his death Kébé had written a book which described his experiences as a “Serge Dassault footsoldier”. On the cover he wanted to publish a photograph of himself in front of an impressive pile of banknotes. This was part of the 1.2 million euros that he had received from Serge Dassault in the Lebanon to pay his “team”.
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The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter