The French start-up Hopium, which aims to market a high-end sedan powered by hydrogen, announced this Monday morning (May 16, 2022) that it had proposed the appointment of the Minister of Transport to its board of directors.
Prime Minister Jean Castex had not yet submitted his resignation and that of the government to Emmanuel Macron that the next destination of Jean-Baptiste Djebbari was revealed. The French start-up Hopium, which aims to market a high-end sedan powered by hydrogen, announced on Monday morning that it had proposed the appointment of the Minister of Transport to its board of directors. This appointment must still be submitted for the approval of the company’s next general meeting on June 20.
Olivier Lombard, founder and CEO of Hopium, is obviously delighted to “to be able to count on its dynamism and its widely proven expertise in the fields of energy and transport”. This arrival in a nugget of French Tech has logically been the subject of a review by the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life (HATVP). Seized at the request of the minister’s office, it issued an opinion on March 22 which rules out a possible risk of conflict of interest.
However, the institution has expressed some reservations because of the strategic functions exercised by Jean-Baptiste Djebbari in the government since September 2019. Consequently, he will have to abstain “of any approach, including representation of interests”with “members of the government who were at the same time as him”and “the services available to him as Minister Delegate for Transport” for a period of three years following the termination of his duties. A slipper that does not pass with everyone, in particular Thomas Portes, former spokesperson for Sandrine Rousseau and candidate of the Nupes in the legislative elections in Seine-Saint-Denis, who castigates a “macronie republic of lobbies”. On Twitter, the announcement also caused a reaction.
Let’s go back: in September 2021, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, then gadget minister of transport appeared in an advertising video for the hydrogen car brand Hopium.
Today, he joins the board of directors.
How do we call that? pic.twitter.com/JuGXErLZJS— Marcel (@realmarcel1) May 16, 2022