The Court of Appeal of Aix-en-Provence will deliver its decision this Tuesday afternoon in the case known as the “Falco fridge”. The former mayor of Toulon is accused of “hiding public funds” to the detriment of the regional council.
Initially, Hubert Falco was given a three-year suspended prison sentence by the Marseille criminal court and fined 55,000 euros. But also to an additional sentence of five years of invalidity with “temporary execution” thus immediately removing him from his orders as mayor and president of the Toulon-Provence- Mediterranean Metropolis (TPM).
Incredibly, the former mayor of Toulon is accused of profiting from food served in the cafeteria of Toulon’s community headquarters. This privilege granted to the former president of the Department (between 1994 and 2001) had no legal basis.
“I made a mistake”
“ I confessed my crime. I shouldn’t have gone to eat at the council, it’s a mistake“, said Hubert Falco during his appeal. “ I ask for a sentence that corresponds to the crime I have committed“, he said at the end of the debates.
On the other hand, the accused objected to the rest of the charges, related to the catering service with takeaway food prepared by territorial agents, and to the payment of dry cleaning costs.
Marc Giraud, president of the regional council at the time of the events (the courts held a period between April 2, 2015 and December 30, 2018), was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended, a fine of 15,000 euros and five years of invalidity.
The question of impossibility
“We are far from the financial issues we were familiar with in the past“, pleaded his lawyer Me Jean-Claude Guidicelli lamenting” political death sentence“.
“Does this affair leave Hubert Falco, at the twilight of his political life, condemned for not being able to finish his career?“, asked Me Thierry Fradet, for the benefit of the former mayor of Toulon who will pass the 77-year-old mark this Wednesday.
that’s all the matter of the decision which will be delivered this Tuesday the office of the public prosecutor confirmation of the first birth was requested. In the political region of Var, the judgment of the Court of Appeal – subject to a final appeal in cassation – will not be opposed to the electoral calendar of the coming years, with the municipal elections of 2026 in the crosshairs.
