In recent weeks Martine Aubry has stepped back into the political limelight. The former first secretary of the Socialist Party has publicly sparred with prime minister Manuel Valls and made apparent her dismay with the performance and direction of President François Hollande's government. In July Aubry, who is mayor of Lille in northern France and who was beaten by Hollande in her bid to be the party’s presidential candidate, pointedly said that it was “not too late” for this presidency to be a “success”, making it clear she thinks that so far it has been anything but.
But Aubry's return to the front ranks of French politics could be overshadowed by a judicial investigation into the awarding of a lucrative construction contract to build the Grand Stade de Lille sports stadium - now known as the Stade Pierre-Mauroy – which will be a key venue in the Euro 2016 football tournament in France. On February 1st, 2008, 82% of councillors at a plenary session of the greater Lille council, the Lille Métropole Communauté urbaine (LMCU), voted to award the contract to construction group Eiffage for 440 million euros. This decision was supposedly made on the basis of a new technical evaluation report from council officials stating that Eiffage had produced the best bid.
There was just one problem – it has since transpired that at the time there was no such report. In fact, just a week earlier, on January 23rd, 2008, a year-long study from the Lille Metropolitan council's technical service unit had concluded that the best-value bid for the authority was from rivals Bouygues, which came in at around 100 million euros under the Eiffage proposal.
It was not until May 2008 that the 'new' report putting Eiffage at the top of the list of preferred bidders was written. A judicial investigation launched into the affair two years ago quickly concluded that this report from May 2008 was a false, fraudulent document. And that it was adapted in haste from the genuine report when the authority was faced with an examination of the deal by the prefecture in the Nord département, broadly equivalent to a county.
The problem for Martine Aubry is that in her capacity as president of the Lille Métropole authority, she sent a copy of this false document to councillors on July 22nd, 2008. Mediapart has had access to the covering letter sent with the document, and which was signed by Aubry.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Contacted by Mediapart, Martine Aubry's office defended her actions. “Martine Aubry merely sent the councillors a copy of the document sent by [former LMCU vice-president] Michèle Démessine to the prefecture,” said her spokesman. “At no time was she aware of the existence of a false document until the affair was revealed.” The official added: “This letter was signed automatically by machine!”
When asked about what Martine Aubry knew in relation to the falsity of the report she was sending - for example the document's February 1st 2008 date - her spokesman said that the mayor “doesn't check all the dates of documents that are put before her and which have been stamped by officials”.
In December 2013 a summary written by a police superintendent from the Lille fraud squad named Martine Aubry as one of five people who had taken part in the use of the false document which the judicial authorities have been investigating. This report, first revealed by the Atlantico news website, clearly opened up the possibility of Martine Aubry being a target of the investigation.
The police report’s contents appear to leave little room for doubt. “In this instance the false document is the report analysing the final offers dated February 1st, 2008...It led to consequences in relation to the way the process was perceived by the authorities (the Nord Prefecture, the [editor's note, financial watchdog] Regional Chamber of Accounts..) by the [metropolitan authority’s] councillors and eventually by other third parties,” it states. And it goes on to say: “The elected representatives who transmitted this document and who took part in the [council's] deliberations on February 1st, 2008, could not have been unaware that this document had not been written at the date indicated, because it had not been passed on at the said meeting in which they participated.”
This all points to the coucnil's evaluation report having been modified after the event with the aim of making the choice of local politicians and the choice of the metropolitan authority's technical services unit correspond. This view is supported by the minutes of the metropolitan authority's executive committee meeting of February 1st, 2008, at which Martine Aubry was present. At that time she was not yet president of the LMCU, with the post still held then by former French prime minister Pierre Mauroy.
'Everyone knew the report was drawn up afterwards'
On that day the director general of the council's services, Bernard Guillemot, raised the need to produce a new evaluation report following the vote in favour of Eiffage. “The 75-page report must therefore also be modified,” he told the meeting. “The elected representatives must thus put forward different propositions because, from next week, it's likely that there will be several appeals and that we will be obliged to attach to the proposed decision the report that supports the ranking [editor's note, of the different appeals]. We will have to work together very quickly to produce the report corresponding to your analysis and which will support the decision.” This apparent rigging of the rules persuaded police officers to go back to the judicial authorities to ask for the investigation to be widened to cover potential favouritism – without success so far.
Vincent Thomas, the former project manager for the Grand Stade development, and Stéphane Coudert, former assistant director of major facilities at the LMCU, were both placed under formal investigation – one step short of charges being brought – in May this year. In statements made during their questioning they admit that “the elected representatives knew that they didn't have the document on the date of February 1st”. This was confirmed by the communist former LMCU vice-president Michèle Démessine, who has been made an 'assisted witness', a status peculiar to French law which is applied where investigators believe a person is involved in the chain of events they are looking at but where there is no clear and compelling proof they were themselves guilty of a crime. Questioned by the examining magistrate in charge of the investigation, Fabienne Atzori, Démessine said: “Everyone knew that this report was drawn up after [the authority's executive council meeting] as it didn't exist on February 1st.”
In fact, the false final report sent to councillors was only slightly altered. Out of the 85 pages in the document only two sentences concerning the architectural quality of the plans were changed, these changes thus allowing Eiffage to receive a better score than Bouygues. The Bouygues bid being much lower than the Eiffage plan, this sleight of hand cost the Lille authority an extra 100 million euros.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
Marc-Philippe Daubresse, an MP for the right-wing opposition party the UMP who was the head of his party's opposition group on the LMCU in 2008, told Mediapart of the chain of events at the time. “We waited several months for Madame Aubry to send us the final evaluation report which put Eiffage at the top,” he says. “But we were surprised to discover that the arguments that had tipped the choice towards Eiffage were not to be found in the report. Only two lines had been changed!”
It remains to be known just how the councillors on the LMCU could have voted so overwhelmingly for the Eiffage plan, given that it had been rejected by the authority’s own technical services department. There have been suspicions of backhanders being paid, and a signed letter making such allegations has been sent to the judicial authorities. But the investigation has not been asked to look into these claims.
As for the probe into the use of a false document, the case seemed to be clear. And then, against all expectations, the investigating judge Fabienne Atzori ruled on August 11th, 2014, that the case was closed, arguing that under the law of limitations, and in relation to most of the people involved, too much time had elapsed since the committing of the alleged offences. In her judgement the judge, who has just been transferred to the court of appeal in Lyon in eastern France, recognised the existence of a false document. But she said it had been carried out in a “private” context – thus reducing the period of limitation – even though the investigation concerned a public deal and was looking into the practices of a local authority.
Lawyer Joseph Breham, who is representing Éric Darques, a Lille councillor who has joined the legal proceedings as a civil party and potential victim, and who is a member of the anti-corruption association Anticor, is deeply unhappy with the judge's ruling. “A false document was consciously made by the town's technical services and then transmitted by elected representatives, fully aware of the facts,” says Breham. “The prosecution authorities were most reluctant to open an inquiry and now, after two years of investigation, two people placed under investigation, one person made an assisted witness and several days away from Martine Aubry being questioned, the case is closed for procedural reasons.” The lawyer has now referred the matter to the court of appeal in Lille to try to get the judge's ruling overturned.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter