A former Lagarde collaborator admits his role in the false article

The ex-driver of the resigning president of the UDI Jean-Christophe Lagarde recognized in September before the investigators his key role in the maneuvers which led to the resounding false article of the Point on LFI deputies Raquel Garrido and Alexis Corbière, and he also involved his boss.

The affair started in June, just after the second round of the legislative elections, with the publication online of an article by journalist Aziz Zemouri unduly accusing the couple of having exploited an undocumented cleaning lady. “Everything is false”, immediately denied the two parliamentarians.

Item removed the next day

Very rare fact, the newspaper withdrew the article the next day, then publicly admitted its “false” and “misleading” character. Acknowledging shortcomings in its “internal control processes”, the weekly launched an internal investigation and initiated dismissal proceedings against Aziz Zemouri. Following complaints filed by the couple but also by the journalist, the Paris prosecutor’s office at the end of June entrusted a preliminary investigation to the Brigade for the repression of personal crime (BRDP), which placed three protagonists in police custody at the beginning of September. .

In a report released by The Parisianthe BRDP detailed on September 8 the positions held before the investigators by Jean-Christophe Lagarde, his ex-collaborator Rudy Succar as well as by a policeman, Anouar Bouhadjela, also called Noam Anouar.

Sort of “hand man” of Jean-Christophe Lagarde according to a source close to the file, Rudy Succar will first deny “any involvement”, indicates the report. He is then confronted with elements of telephony “designating him as the only person who could have been the user of the line presented as being that of the mistreated employee”.

In search of compromising information

The ex-driver of Jean-Christophe Lagarde then “ends up” “by recognizing” that he had posed as this woman to the journalist of the Point. Pattern ? As the first round of the June legislative elections approaches, Rudy Succar declares that he was “seen suggested by the ex-mayor of Drancy to find information likely to harm” Raquel Garrido, whom he faced in this constituency of the Seine. -Saint-Denis – and who will ultimately win the ballot.

The ex-driver would have “acted on his own initiative to satisfy his employer, Jean-Christophe Lagarde”, evoking “a form of psychological influence”, and “invented this story”. He would then have reported it to his boss, without informing him of his lying character.

A dependent item between the two rounds

Contacted, his lawyers Ghislain de Foucher and Chloé Méléard did not wish to comment. In police custody, the former head of the UDI initially rejected any role in the case. He then “changed version” and admitted having been informed of this story by Rudy Succar, then having then transmitted this “good news” to the police officer Noam Anouar, seconded to the town hall of Drancy, former stronghold of Lagarde led by his wife Aude .

The links of Noam Anouar with journalists would have, according to the statements of Jean-Christophe Lagarde who disputes being “the instigator of the manipulation”, could have made it possible to “establish or not the veracity” of the facts. It was Noam Anouar who then transmitted the adulterated pipe to Aziz Zemouri, and according to the statements of the latter before the BRDP in June insisted that the article be published in the interval between the legislative rounds.

Who benefits from lying?

The report presents Jean-Christophe Lagarde as the one “who had the greatest interest” in the publication of the article during the legislative elections. On September 8, a judicial investigation was opened in Paris and Rudy Succar was indicted in particular for fraud in an organized gang, forgery or identity theft, while Lagarde and Bouhadjela were left free, without prosecution at this stage.

Aziz Zemouri, also accused of defamation by the two deputies, is a civil party in this case. His lawyer David-Olivier Kaminski believes that “the judicial inquiry must now focus on who benefits from the manipulation of information”. During his June hearing at the BRDP, Aziz Zemouri defended the content of his “usual checks” and targeted Jean-Christophe Lagarde as the person responsible for the manipulation.