A Dutch journalist who claimed the expense reports of the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo in 2017, the year in which the city managed to organize the Olympic Games, finally recovered them this Friday after five years of judicial processes in which he emerged victorious.
“I finally have the expense reports for Anne Hidalgo and her firm for the year 2017. The investigation continues,” Stefan de Vries, a freelance journalist who lives between Paris and Amsterdam, said on Twitter.
Received by the Deputy General Secretary of the City and Yves Charpenel, President of the Ethics Commission of Parisian elected officials, Mr. de Vries left with six files corresponding to the expenses of representation, travel and catering of the elected socialist and five of his collaborators, he told AFP.
Constrained by the decision of the Council of State, the city council had initially “invited” it on Wednesday, March 22, but the correspondent judged this date “too far from the deadline for the precautionary measure established by the Council of State”, which had on 8 February he ordered the mayor to “re-examine Mr. de Vries’s application within one month”. The consistory and the lawyer agreed to an appointment this Friday afternoon.
In March 2021, the administrative court of Paris had already granted Stefan de Vries’ request, ordering the city of Paris to communicate these documents to him. The City then appealed to the Council of State to have this judgment annulled. If she won her case on this point, the Majors basically agreed with the journalist, considering that “the expense notes and travel receipts, as well as the catering expense notes and representation expense receipts from the officials’ premises elected officials or public officials constitute administrative documents, which can be communicated to any person who requests them”.
Mr. de Vries had requested these documents from the city council at the beginning of 2018, to no avail, to try to explain in an article “how much the campaign for the Olympic Games cost the taxpayer,” he told AFP.
In 2017, Paris was designated the host city of the 2024 Olympic Games. For this, Anne Hidalgo had multiplied her trips around the world to promote the Parisian candidacy.
Source: L Independant
