A French minister since the time of Nicolas Sarkozy has gone behind bars for good
LCI
Claude Gean claims that he has no means to pay the fine, and that his health is fragile for serving a sentence, although in a prison called “Health”
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Former French Interior Minister Claude Gehan (77) has entered the Sante prison (“Health”) in southern Paris following a conviction in a case of illegal payment of bonuses, announced today the television channel LCI.
In 2015, the Paris Correctional Court found a close aide to former French President Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of illegally paying monthly bonuses to himself and other French Interior Ministry officials. The funds for them were taken from the police fund to ensure the investigation and tracking of suspects. At the time when Sarkozy was the head of the Interior Ministry, Gean was the director general of the police and was well acquainted with the whole mechanism of its financing. It has been established that the funds misappropriated in the period 2002-2004 amount to EUR 210,000. In one month, 10,000 euros were illegally taken from the fund, half of which Gean kept for himself, and the rest he distributed to three of his closest associates.
As a preventive measure, the court sentenced him to two years in prison (one year probation) and a fine of 75,000 euros. He was also banned from holding public office for five years. In 2017, this decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal, and in 2019 by the Court of Cassation.
From 2011 to 2012, Claude Gehan was Minister of the Interior, Overseas Territories, Local Government and Immigration.
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