Elysee Palace secretary general Alexis Kohler has been charged with conflict of interest for allegedly failing to disclose his familial ties with MSC.
Prosecutor Jean-François Bohnert said today (4 October) that Kohler, whose full name is Arnaud Alexis Michel Kohler, had failed to disclose that his mother is a cousin of MSC founder Gianluigi Aponte’s wife Rafaela.
In 2018, French investigative news site Mediapart published a report alleging that Kohler concealed his ties to MSC from the parliamentary ethics commission, while he was an employee of the French finance ministry.
The report alleged that after leaving the French civil service and joining MSC in 2016, Kohler attended at least one government meeting to discuss the fate of STX France, the French state-supported affiliate of the now-defunct South Korean STX shipbuilding group. Eventually, half of STX France was sold to Italian shipbuilding group Fincantieri in 2018.
Subsequently, during the same year, Anticor, an anti-corruption watchdog, filed a legal complaint against Kohler, accusing him of using his position as a French civil servant to award French government contracts to MSC in 2010 and 2011.
While the complaint was thrown out in 2019, Anticor did not give up and in 2020, filed a lawsuit against Kohler, setting off a magistrate’s probe.
Kohler, described as Macron’s right-hand man, handles emergencies, major economic and social issues as well as some political decisions. Through his lawyer, Eric Dezeuze, Kohler has denied any wrongdoing, although Anticor lawyer Jean-Baptiste Soufron asserts that resignation is inevitable for the French presidential aide.
Martina Li
Correspondent
