The president of the Ile de France region is suspected of having held stock options from Alstom, a multinational specializing in the rail transport sector, while she headed IDF Mobilité.
“Valérie Pécresse has scrupulously respected the rules for the prevention of conflicts of interest, in complete transparency with the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life (HATVP)”, we insist on those around her. The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) has opened a preliminary investigation for illegal taking of interests following a report by elected environmentalists. They suspect the president of the Ile-de-France region of having held stock options at Alstom, while presiding over the transport authority Ile-de-France Mobilités (IDFM).
On February 21, when she was a candidate for the presidential election, environmental representatives IDFM, including David Belliard, deputy (EELV) to the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo (PS), then announced to take legal action. They relied in particular on an article in January from the online media Blastaccording to which the president of the region had “invisibilized” shares of Alstom that she held with her husband so that they no longer appear in her declarations of interest.
Jérôme Pécresse worked at Alstom until the takeover of the group’s energy activities by General Electric in November 2015. A month later, Ms. Pécresse was elected head of the region and quickly created, according to Blast, a “trust”, an arrangement also known under the Anglo-Saxon term of trust, so that a bank manages this portfolio of shares in their place.
Since then, IDFM has ordered nearly 2.4 billion euros in rolling stock from Alstom, according to elected environmentalists. “However, Ms. Pécresse did not abstain from participating during this period in the examination of the files and the choice of the companies submitted to the vote of the CA (…) which resulted in the choice of the company Alstom as supplier, (…) while she and her husband were holders of financial assets of this company”, affirmed the elected environmentalists.
“After the start of his mandate, neither he nor he were ever again owners of Alstom shares, nor interested in the results of the company or the evolution of the share price”, had then recalled the entourage of Madame Pécresse.
“Mr. Pécresse immediately sold all the Alstom shares” he owned after his wife was elected. A trust was set up with a bank to receive the balance of the “non-transferable” shares and sell them once they have become transferable at a price lower than the share price, the same source said.
“It’s yet another stinky ball from the Greens in their usual method of slandering to smear”
the entourage of Valérie Pécresse
“All the supporting documents on this slanderous denunciation” had been sent to justice.
With AFP
