Justice. Former Socialist Minister Bruno Le Roux to be tried in November for the illegal employment of his daughters

Former Socialist minister Bruno Le Roux will be tried on November 12 and 13 by the Paris Criminal Court for embezzlement of public funds in connection with the employment of his daughters as assistants when he was a member of parliament, a judicial source announced Tuesday. A first hearing on the organization of the trial is scheduled for September 3.

The National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) opened an investigation in 2017 to examine suspicions of misappropriation of his mandate expenses allowance (IRFM) and the employment of his two daughters as parliamentary assistants between 2009 and 2017 when he was a member of parliament for Seine-Saint-Denis. Shortly after the opening of this investigation, Bruno Le Roux resigned from his post as Minister of the Interior on March 21, 2017, less than a month before the presidential election.

In the Assembly and at the University

"For more than eight years, we have never made any statements" on this affair, reacted Bruno Le Roux, explaining that he had reserved his explanations "for investigators only." "We will continue, in a very calm and determined manner, to reserve for the courts all the elements that will allow us to demonstrate the total absence of offenses," he added.

The facts were revealed by "Quotidien" on TMC. According to the program, her two daughters accumulated 14 and 10 fixed-term contracts respectively during this period when they were high school and then university students, for a total amount of 55,000 euros. Some of these contracts may have taken place at the same time as internships in companies or during university time, in the summer of 2013 for one of the daughters, 20 days in May 2015 for the other.

Several parliamentarians have been convicted in recent years for the improper use of their IRFM, including former deputies Jean-Christophe Cambadélis (PS), Alain Marsaud (LR), Anne-Christine Lang (PS) and former senator Philippe Nachbar (LR).