The new mandate of Anne Hidalgo, the head of capital does not begin under the best auspices. The relationship between the mayor and socialist allies environmentalists are stretched : Thursday, July 23, at the first Council of Paris of his tenure, feminist activists, supported by two elected environmentalists, had gathered on the steps of city hall to demand the resignation of the deputy for culture, Christophe Girard, heard in march in the investigation for "rape of minors" against Gabriel Matzneff. These events had pushed the elected to resign from his post. Anne Hidalgo had for its part denounced the "excesses" of its partners, environmentalists, and demanded " apologies ". But the case was it really as simple as that ?
Christophe Girard would not have only resigned in the wake of the protests feminists. According to the revelations of Mediapart, the Mayor of Paris has found the trace of lunches between the ex-deputy in charge of culture and the writer Gabriel Matzneff, who is suspected of paedophilia and under investigation for " rape of minors ". Three notes of charges for a meal in a restaurant between the two men have been discovered.
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one of them, in the amount of 85 euros and dated 12 February 2019, has been forwarded by Anne Hidalgo, to the parquet de Paris in the framework of the preliminary investigation opened in the case Matzneff. Christophe Girard was reimbursed for the expenditure in his capacity of deputy to the culture, justifying with the services of the City lunch in the framework of the day of the handwriting, organized by the Paris three months later. The other two bills date back to 2016 and 2017 – Girard was then the mayor of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, says Mediapart.
"No political endorsement of the mayor"
Interviewed by Mediapart, the office of Anne Hidalgo provides that the mayor of the capital " had absolutely no knowledge of this breakfast in 2019 ". The reimbursement of expenses was made according to a process " purely administrative ". "There has been no validation policy of the office of the mayor. "According to the team of the municipal official socialist," when the mayor learns of this expense report ", " she takes the decision to tell Christophe Girard, and to inform the prosecutor's office ", because " the case is sensitive ". "The mayor has considered that this new room was not incriminating, since we knew that Christophe Girard had all manner of links, that he had been heard by justice, and that it is not covered by any complaint," says the firm.
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A close friend of Anne Hidalgo, cited by Mediapart, do not hesitate in any case to say that these new elements have " weighed in the personal decision taken by Christophe Girard ". "He obviously sought to hide all trace of a relationship, in reality, more established than it admitted to itself," he says. The mayor socialist of Paris, re-elected on 3 July, "repeats" of its side support Christophe Girard.
