Ten years after the facts, the Elysee polls case before justice – archyde

From Claude Guéant to Patrick Buisson via Pierre Giacometti or Emmanuelle Mignon, it is a whole political era – that of the mandate of Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-2012) – which will parade at the helm of the 32^e chamber of the Paris Criminal Court from Monday, October 18, to respond to the so-called “Elysee polls” affair.

During the five years of Mr. Sarkozy’s mandate, the presidency ordered and invoiced to friendly companies for opinion polls, on subjects sometimes without much relation to the conduct of the State, and without going through normal procedures calls for tenders.

For me^e Jérôme Karsenti, lawyer for the anti-corruption association Anticor, civil party, this trial raises the question of “The way in which Nicolas Sarkozy exercised power, using the Elysee Palace and the means of the State in his personal interest, caring above all about his image and his possible re-election in defiance of the rules of law, of money public, which allowed the personal enrichment of Patrick Buisson, in gratitude for his good and loyal service during the campaign ”. It also reflects the problem of court delays: more than a decade passed between the first complaint filed against X by Anticor, on February 11, 2010 following a report by the Court of Auditors, and the trial. .

The sometimes intensive use of opinion polls by the Presidency of the Republic, at the heart of the trial, is nothing new. Their order and their payment were for a long time carried out in the most total opacity. But, in 2008, the Court of Auditors obtained for the first time the possibility of controlling the management of the Elysée. The report it publishes the following year evokes an irregularity in the tender agreement signed with a “research firm” responsible for ordering surveys, for a total of 1.5 million euros between 2007 and 2009. This is Publifact, whose leader is none other than the influential adviser Patrick Buisson, political scientist from the far right.

Victory in December 2012

The former Grenoble ecologist Raymond Avrillier, who obtained through an administrative procedure the documents from the Elysée relating to the survey contracts, will speak of a “Sounding drunkenness”. Between June 2007 and July 2009, the Presidency of the Republic ordered 264 opinion polls, some of which dealt with questionable themes. Respondents are thus asked about their opinion of the Nicolas Sarkozy-Carla Bruni couple; or on the image of socialist personalities like Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was then a potential candidate for the 2012 presidential election.

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