Controversy Surrounding Laurent Wauquiez’s Official Visit to Japan Sparks Demands for Accountability

The opposition of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regional council wants accountability from Laurent Wauquiez.

The regional LR president made an official visit to Japan in March, which today is at the center of controversy.

The day revealed the story “Laurent Wauquiez’s very ‘secret’ trip to Japan”describes a visit from March 8 to 15 during which a dinner was held in a Michelin-starred restaurant with French and Japanese business leaders.

It was a movement “Economically focused in which more than 25 regional companies participated”for “encouraging industrial enterprises in the area”, answered Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Entreprises, a structure responsible for helping companies develop internationally. The economic development group of the region, of which Laurent Wauquiez is co-president, organized this mission, she specifies, and not the department.

The group also believes that “it would be wrong to say that this visit had any mystical nature”. Of course, she says yes “communicating several times on social networks, with businesses and the general public”.

The group of Experts at the regional council responded, predicting that Laurent Wauquiez did not “Rarely concerned with publicity”. Il “requests that all elements of this visit be made public.” The same request from the Socialist, Ecological and Democratic group, which directly attacks the LR framework: “When will Laurent Wauquiez stop believing that he is above the law and considering our community’s money as a personal pot?”ask the socialists through a press release.

Dinner with 150 guests

During this visit, the delegation met with Japanese leaders and officials, especially in Hokkaido to promote industries related to mountain operations, and participated in the Smart Manufacturing Conference in Nagoya, in the center of Japan, explains the group. The point that shows tension, however, concerns organizing a dinner with nearly 150 French and Japanese business leaders in a Michelin-starred restaurant in Tokyo.

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  Laurent Wauquiez settled for an interesting dinner at the expense of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region

In response, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Entreprises shows that “the amounts are not confirmed at this stage”but that the financial statement “can be distributed as part of the process of presenting the group’s own accounts”.

TD with AFP