Alain Griset back to justice. Almost a month after his conviction by the Paris Criminal Court for “incomplete or false declaration” of his patrimonial situation, the former Minister for SMEs will appear this Tuesday before the Lille Criminal Court for “breach of trust”.
His lawyer Me Patrick Maisonneuve announced to AFP that he will ask for a postponement of the hearing because of the very short time “between the closing of the case on December 15 and the hearing”. This request “must be logically accepted”, added the lawyer, specifying that his client will not appear at the hearing.
Another judicial aspect
Alain Griset, who before becoming Minister had exercised for more than 30 years the profession of taxi driver, must answer for “breach of trust” at the expense of the National Confederation of Crafts, Trades and Services (Cnams) of North. This is one of the aspects of the case which earned him his sentence on December 8 to six months suspended imprisonment and a suspended three-year ineligibility sentence. He resigned from the government in the process.
Alain Griset was prosecuted in Paris for having failed to declare, in August 2020, after his appointment to the government, part of his assets and his interests to the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life (HATVP). Among the sums at stake, 130,000 euros placed in the Minister’s PEA and which belonged to the Cnams du Nord, an inter-professional organization that Alain Griset had headed since 1991. On this aspect, the former minister incurs five years of imprisonment and a fine of 375,000 euros, according to the Lille prosecutor’s office.
The HATVP had taken legal action
Before the Parisian court, Alain Griset had argued in October that he had received in August 2019 “mandate” from the Cnams to “grow this sum over a short period in order to buy real estate”. He was in passing congratulated on the capital gain of 19,000 euros achieved in eleven months. “My mandate was to manage this money as president of Cnams. Not being president any more, this mandate ended. This money did not belong to me. It never belonged to me before being minister and even less after, ”he underlined.
The HATVP had taken legal action in November 2020 after noting the omission of Alain Griset. Tracfin, the anti-money laundering unit of Bercy, had for its part made a report to the Lille prosecutor’s office. For the HATVP, the main aim of the omission of declaration was “to prevent the revelation of facts liable to receive the criminal qualification of breach of trust”.