Former Prime Minister François Fillon, sentenced Monday on appeal to four in prison, including one year in prison in the case of suspicion of fictitious jobs for his wife Penelope Fillon, will appeal to the Court of Cassation, his lawyers announced in a press release. Penelope Fillon, as well as the former substitute for François Fillon, Marc Joulaud, sentenced respectively to two and three years in prison, suspended, will also appeal to the highest court of the judiciary.
Criminal sanctions suspended, not the payment of damages
The prison sentence of the former tenant of Matignon between 2007 and 2012, now 68 years old, was accompanied by a fine of 375,000 euros and ten years of ineligibility. His wife was sentenced to two years in prison suspended and 375,000 euros fine, his former deputy Marc Joulaud to three years in prison suspended. Ineligibility sentences of two and five years were also pronounced against them. The three defendants were finally ordered to pay around 800,000 euros to the National Assembly, as a civil party.
Absent during the pronouncement of the decision, the couple and the former substitute will appeal to the Court of Cassation, which suspends the criminal sanctions. The payment of damages, on the other hand, is not frozen and could be claimed immediately by the lower house of Parliament.
“Proof provided on the work of Penelope Fillon”
If the Court of Appeal cleared the couple concerning Penelope Fillon’s first parliamentary assistant contract between 1998 and 2002, “it did not draw the consequences of its own findings on the evidence provided of the reality of the work accomplished by Penelope Fillon” for the other two contracts, defense lawyers said in a statement.
“This question, as well as the important legal issues relating in particular to the violation of the separation of powers, the unfair conduct of this procedure or the acquisition of prescription, will have to be analyzed by the Court of Cassation”, continue advice.
Lighter penalties than at first instance
These penalties for embezzlement of public funds, complicity in the misuse of corporate assets and concealment of these two offenses in particular, are lighter than those pronounced at first instance, on June 29, 2020. François Fillon was then sentenced to five years in prison, including two years firm, and his wife had received a three-year suspended prison sentence, the penalties of fine and ineligibility being identical. Marc Joulaud had been sentenced, in addition, to a fine of 20,000 euros.
Unlike the court, the court of appeal released the spouses on the first of the three disputed contracts as parliamentary assistant to Penelope Fillon “for the benefit of the doubt”. Beyond a reduction in penalties, this assessment leads to a reduction in the amount of damages for the National Assembly – which had been awarded around one million euros in the first instance.
The Court of Appeal followed the requisitions of the General Prosecutor’s Office
The court also released the couple in the employment section of the two eldest of their children in 2006-2007, when François Fillon was a senator. On the other hand, the court of appeal confirmed the fictitious nature of the activities of Penelope Fillon with Marc Joulaud, who had replaced François Fillon as deputy for Sarthe between 2002 and 2007, as well as those of the Franco-Welshwoman again with her husband, in 2012-2013. Similarly, justice again considered that Penelope Fillon’s “literary advisor” contract at the Revue des deux mondes in 2012-2013 had no consistency.
At the helm, during the appeal trial from November 15 to 30, in a much less electric atmosphere than at the first trial, the couple had maintained the same defense, identical since the origin of this case: the work of Penelope Fillon, “on the ground” in the Sarthe, was certainly “immaterial”, but very “real”.
The Court of Appeal almost followed the requisitions of the General Prosecutor’s Office. The public prosecutor had, on the other hand, considered that the three contracts were fictitious, speaking of “impalpable” or even “evanescent” activities – it can also appeal to the Court of Cassation. Withdrawn from political life, François Fillon announced at the end of February, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that he would resign from his mandates on the boards of directors of the petrochemical giant Sibur and Zarubezhneft (hydrocarbons).