Ihe communist candidate Fabien Roussel, implicated by Mediapart who accuses him of having been paid between 2009 and 2014 as a parliamentary assistant without having actually worked, assured Monday that he had “the documents” proving his activity. “I say today that I worked during these five years with (the former deputy from the North, editor’s note) Jean-Jacques Candelier, with the colleagues I had with him. Jean-Jacques like them will be able to testify to the work we have done together, ”he said on Europe 1.
“I was with him, and without him, to follow the conflicts in the Douaisis, at his place, […] I have the documents of the work that I did with him on these subjects, with trade unionists”, assured Fabien Roussel: “I will show them. “I have documents of the fights that we fought together on this ground in the mining basins”, he continued, assuring that the former deputy “was proud to have a political leader as a collaborator” .
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A “valuable and efficient” employee
In a press release, Jean-Jacques Candelier said Monday “surprised and indignant at the article implying that Fabien Roussel did not work for (him)”. “He was a valuable and effective collaborator, in the field, constantly in contact with many union players, elected officials, inhabitants of Douaisis as well as the entire mining area and Nord-Pas-de-Calais”, says the former -deputy, who specifies that Fabien Roussel “had a very detailed knowledge of the economic and social situation, but also close links with many players in the territory”. “That’s why I hired him,” he says.
Fabien Roussel also assured that his work was “in all the speeches, the written questions, the fights, the laws tabled by Jean-Jacques Candelier”. The candidate, who claimed to be too respectful of the work of journalists to question it, specified that he had however never won 3,000 euros per month as Mediapart writes. “I started at 2,460 net, ended at 2,700.”
“They investigated by questioning people who are at war with me. I don’t only have friends, it’s normal […] But I have dozens of people who will be able to say what we did together, the fights we even won together with Jean-Jacques Candelier, ”he said. “A month and a half before the first round, something that comes out like that, I said to myself, calmly, ‘it’s the game'”, further declared Fabien Roussel, who officially submitted his candidacy to the Constitutional Council “this weekend,” after getting his 500 referrals.