The investigation into the links between Valérie Pécresse and Alstom dismissed

The LR president of the Île-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, announced on Wednesday the closing of a case concerning her. This is the preliminary investigation opened at the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) to illegal taking of interest with the railway manufacturer Alstom.

Valérie Pécresse “welcomes the decision of the PNF to close without follow-up for lack of infringement, the complaint lodged against her by elected officials from Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV), in February 2022, in the midst of the presidential campaign “, indicates his entourage. She herself announced this ranking this Wednesday at the board of directors of the Île-de-France Mobilités transport authority (IDFM). His opponent Jean-Baptiste Pegeon, one of the elected environmentalists who had made the report under article 40 of the code of criminal procedure, confirmed this to AFP.

A source close to the file confirmed the clification for absence of infringement of this investigation opened in March 2022. Asked, the PNF did not respond immediately.

A complaint for “slanderous denunciation” in return

Several EELV elected officials had denounced to the public prosecutor the fact that Valérie Pécresse allegedly held stock options at Alstom while presiding over the transport authority IDFM. These elected officials, including Jean-Baptiste Pegeon and David Belliard, deputy (EELV) to the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo (PS), relied on an article from the online media Blast accusing the president of the region of having “invisibilized” Alstom shares that she held with her husband so that they no longer appear in her declarations of interests. Jérôme Pécresse worked at Alstom until the takeover of the group’s energy activities by General Electric in November 2015.

A month later, Valérie Pécresse was elected head of the region and quickly created, according to Blast, a trust, an arrangement also known by the Anglo-Saxon term of trust, so that a bank manages this portfolio of shares at their place. Since then, IDFM has ordered nearly 2.4 billion euros in rolling stock from Alstom, according to elected environmentalists.

The personal and family et situation of Valérie Pécresse “was public, known since 2016, in accordance with the obligations of the High Authority for the transparency of public life (HATVP)”, underlines the former presidential candidate LR, attacked at this subject in the middle of the campaign. Valérie Pécresse, who had taken “all measures” to “avoid any conflict of interest” with Alstom, once again denounces a “coarse political manipulation” of these elected environmentalists. The PNF informed her that her complaint for “slanderous denunciation” has just been transmitted to the Paris prosecutor’s office for investigation.