The Court of Appeal of Paris dismissed on Tuesday, November 26, the prescription raised by Alexis Kohler and thus confirmed the process against the secretary general of the Elysée for having illegally interested in the investigation into his family ties with the shipowner MSC, according to a close source report. to the matter in World. This decision could be the subject of an appeal by Mr. Kohler and the other two defendants.
Emmanuel Macron’s right-hand man has been accused since 2022 of illegal acquisition of interests for having participated as a senior official from 2009 to 2016 in several decisions relating to the Italian-Swiss shipowner run by his mother’s cousins, the Aponte family.
The investigation room examined behind closed doors on the 1stAhem October the petition of Mr. Kohler, the first implicated in events dating back to the years 2009-2012, when he served as representative of the State Participation Agency (APE) on the board of directors of STX France (currently Chantiers de l’ Atlantique), but also on the board of directors of the Grand Maritime Port of Havre (GPMH). It is then suspected that he participated, between 2012 and 2016, in the election of files related to MSC in Bercy, in the cabinet of Pierre Moscovici and then of Emmanuel Macron.
A “satisfactory” decision, according to Anticor’s lawyer
From the beginning, Alexis Kohler’s defense claims, on the one hand, that he always stayed out of any decision regarding MSC and that he informed his superiors of the existence of family ties. “far beyond its ethical obligations”. On the other hand, it guarantees, at the end of a legal calculation, that at least part of the facts, prior to 2014, are prescribed.
On Tuesday, the investigating chamber adopted a different position from that of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Court of Appeal and the one long followed by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office in this case, by adjusting to the vision of the investigating magistrates. In fact, the investigative chamber confirmed an order from April 2023 by which the investigating judges concluded that the facts were not statute-barred, in particular due to the “positive acts to hide” This conflict of interest is attributed to Mr. Kohler.
Two former heads of the APE, Bruno Bézard (2007-2010) and Jean-Dominique Comolli (2010-2012), implicated for their “pact of silence” with Mr. Kohler that would result from a “shame” Given this situation, he had also argued that these events were statute-barred, but the appeals court rejected his appeals.
Jean-Baptiste Soufron, lawyer for Anticor, a civil party in this case, considered that the decision was “satisfactory, especially considering the numerous attempts to bury the file, even by the president himself”. “ However, the question remains of finally allowing the Anticor association to have access to the seals of the file and of knowing what happens with the aborted investigation of the European Commission revealed by the press on the subsidies applied by Mr. Kohler when he was in the office of the Minister of Finance »he added. Contacted, Eric Dezeuze, Alexis Kohler’s attorney, declined to comment.
