Former French interior minister Claude Guéant and Michel Gaudin, former director-general of France's national police force between 2002 and 2007, are to be sent for trial for the misappropriation of interior ministry funds, it has been confirmed..
Guéant stands accused of improperly receiving between 240,000 and 288,000 euros from funds destined for police activity while he was chief-of-staff to Nicolas Sarkozy when the latter was interior minister between 2002 and 2004. He faces charges of aiding and abetting, and receiving the proceeds of fraud. Gaudin faces a charge of misappropriation of public funds.
Three prefects, Daniel Canepa, Michel Camux and Gérard Moisselin, will also stand trial for receiving the proceeds of fraud.
Guéant, 70, is a longstanding key aide and close political ally of Sarkozy’s, having served as his ministerial chief-of-staff throughout the period 2002-2007 (when Sarkozy was also finance minister, from 2004-2005, before returning as interior minister from 2005-2007).
After Sarkozy’s election as president in 2007, Guéant, a former prefect, was again appointed as his chief-of-staff, at the Elysée Palace, before he was himself appointed as interior minister by Sarkozy in 2011.
The trial is expcted to open on September 27th, 2015.
Read here how Mediapart broke the story that Claude Guéant was to stand trial.