The previous head of France’s home intelligence company went on trial on Wednesday on prices of utilizing his safety contacts for personal achieve, together with on behalf of France’s richest man: billionaire LVMH boss Bernard Arnault.
Bernard Squarcini, ex-head of the DCRI safety service (France’s Common Directorate for Inner Safety, since renamed the DGSI), is one in every of 10 males on trial within the Paris legal courtroom case.
They relate each to the interval when Squarcini headed the DCRI from 2008-12 and to his subsequent return to the personal sector, when he labored largely for luxurious behemoth LVMH as a marketing consultant.
Investigators say that as early as 2008, DCRI officers have been deployed to attempt to determine a blackmailer concentrating on Arnault.
He faces 11 prices, together with affect peddling, misuse of public funds, and compromising nationwide safety info.
Jean-Pierre REY/Gamma-Rapho—Getty Pictures
Squarcini’s company racked up contracts value €2 million with LVMH, The Telegraph reported. He allegedly used state instruments to serve his personal pursuits and shared dwell investigation particulars that have been meant to be confidential, together with a couple of legal criticism made by fellow French luxurious powerhouse, Hermès.
Different allegations relate to spying on journalist Francois Ruffin—now a number one left-wing lawmaker—and his newspaper “Fakir” from 2013 to 16.
Earlier than his 2017 election to parliament, Ruffin produced a satirical movie, “Merci Patron” (or “Thanks Boss”), about Arnault that gained a Cesar award—French cinema’s equal of an Oscar. The story follows a household that misplaced their jobs at an LVMH provider when its work was moved out of France.
LVMH chiefs have been nervous about Ruffin on the time of the espionage as a result of he had plans to disrupt the corporate’s shareholder conferences. The corporate finally settled with prosecutors out of courtroom in 2021 for €10 million.
On Tuesday, Ruffin stated that the method had “been decapitated” as a result of LVMH itself was not within the dock.
Together with Squarcini, 9 different persons are on trial—however the LVMH patriarch himself doesn’t face any prices. In a 2019 questioning over the identical matter, Arnault, who’s value $164 billion, denied he had any information of the matter.
Squarcini, too, has denied wrongdoing, telling judges that defending Arnault, France’s richest man, is a matter of nationwide curiosity.
Arnault is about to look in courtroom on Nov. 28 as a witness.
