Several elected officials and environmental activists filed charges for “illegal taking of interests” against Jean-Pierre Gorges, mayor of Chartres. The case is now in the hands of magistrates specializing in cases of “great complexity”.
This is a complaint that could worry the upper echelons of the city of Chartres. According to information from France 3 Center-Val de Loire, four elected opposition environmentalists and more than a dozen citizens filed a complaint against Jean-Pierre Gorges, in April 2021, for “illegal interest“. Offense punishable with a maximum penalty of five years of imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 euros and a further penalty of ineligibility.
In this complaint, which France 3 Center-Val de Loire was able to consult and in which appear the names of the municipal councilors of the opposition Quentin Guillemain, Brigitte Cottereau, Jean-François Bridet (also regional councilor), the elected officials reproach the mayor and president of the metropolis of Chartres for having been, according to them, both a judge and a party in some votes of the municipal council.
Questioned by France 3, Jean-Pierre Gorges declined to speak on the subject.
In detail, the complaint refers to three resolutions concerning votes of “functional protection“, a completely legal measure that allows a public or elected official to have technical and financial assistance when it is attacked in the exercise of its functions. In other words, he can ask the municipality to pay his attorney’s fees during the judicial process.
For example, on December 10, 2020, Jean-Pierre Gorges wishes to receive functional protection after filing a public defamation complaint against the satirical newspaper Cactus print created, in fact, by some of the elected and environmental activists of Chartres at the origin of the complaint.
However, during the City Council, the mayor participates in the vote while he is both judge (mayor and elector) and party (alleged victim of public defamation). It is so in a situation of conflict of interest.
If the latter is not a crime, the law of transparency in public lifevoted in 2013, specifies, in its first article, that all “people who hold local elected offices […] take care to prevent or immediately put an end to any conflict of interest“.
But for the plaintiffs’ attorney, Jade Dousselin, there’s more: “By participating in the resolution that gave him an advantage, or a functional protection in the context of a judicial proceeding which, moreover, opposed him to his own Municipality, he was guilty of the crime of illicit interest“, he claims.
It is now up to the Justice to determine whether Jean-Pierre Gorges’ participation in these deliberations constitutes a crime, as the lawyer and the opposition believe, or whether, on the contrary, he has not committed any violation.
One thing is certain, in 2011 mayor of a small town of 650 inhabitants was convicted of illegal interest taking for having participated in the vote for the functional protection requested by him. The city councilor was sentenced to a simple suspended fine.
If this Chartres affair is part of a context of strong tensions between the Les Républicains majority and the environmentalist opposition, justice takes the elements denounced in the complaint very seriously.
As evidence, the file was sent to the regional economic and financial center of the Nanterre High Court, a court specializing in crimes that “it would seem very complex, due in particular to the large number of perpetrators, accomplices or victims“.
Do we have to understand that this case could concern other people, for example the relatives of the mayor? Contacted, the Nanterre prosecutor did not want to communicate on the matter but confirmed that it had “seized of the file“brought by elected conservationists.
It is not only ecologists who are alarmed by Jean-Pierre Gorges’ possible breaches of probity. The regional Chamber of Accounts has also investigated the multiple conflicts of interest of some elected close to the former deputy, in the metropolis of Charters.
In fact, on 30 September 2022 the Chamber set up the Chartres Metropolis to “its shortcomings in preventing conflicts of interest.The magistrates noted, among other things, that some elected officials had voted for their remuneration in public companies that lead: “Decisions concerning the remuneration of directors of mixed economy companies (SEM) and local public companies (SPL) adopted”unanimously ‘July 16, 2020“.
The speakers also noted that elected officials have sometimes been involved in matters affecting the public companies of which they are members: “DThe community councilors, members of the board of directors of an SEM or an SPL, were able to be present during the vote relating to the company they represent, to explain the reasons, and sometimes even to sign the related contract [au vote ndlr].”
Contacted, the Regional Chamber of Auditors has neither confirmed nor denied having filed a complaint with the Prosecutor for these facts, referring to “Professional secretL”.
