The affair of the supposed fictitious use of the “Chained Duck” rebounds, in a somewhat unexpected way. As famous for its puns and caricatures as for the numerous political and economic scandals that it revealed, the satirical weekly filed a complaint, registered on March 5, and denounced “an illegal digital search” causing “an attack on the all the pillars of our rule of law” regarding a press company. This Wednesday, the Paris prosecutor’s office told AFP that the investigation was entrusted to the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN).
The investigation concerns “possible offenses of fraudulent introduction, extraction and reproduction of data from an automated processing system and false public writing by a person holding public authority”, specified the prosecution. “I take note and am delighted that the complaint is being processed,” Le Canard’s lawyer, Me Didier Leick, responded to AFP.
A digital “link” provided by journalist Christophe Nobili
The accusations refer to a report dated July 22, 2022 from the financial brigade of the Paris judicial police, of which AFP was aware, reporting the consultation by an investigator of a digital “link” provided by Christophe Nobili , one of the journalists at the origin of the revelations on suspicions of fictitious employment concerning François Fillon’s wife, Penelope Fillon, during the 2017 presidential campaign. This link gave access, according to the investigator, “to the page custody of the digital documentation system of the Canard chainé”. The report was drawn up as part of an investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s office into suspicions of fictitious employment within the satirical weekly.
“Traitor for some, whistleblower for others”, according to franceinfo, in 2022, Christophe Nobili had filed a complaint claiming that the partner of a former cartoonist and administrator of Le Canard, André Escaro, had benefited for twenty- five years of remuneration from the newspaper without having worked there, which management disputes. Two former bosses of Le Canard, Michel Gaillard and Nicolas Brimo, must be tried in October in this case, which sparked an internal war.
In its complaint, the management of the weekly specifies that access to the database “is only possible with a password on the condition of being connected to the internal wifi network, which implies being present in the newspaper’s premises or in the immediate vicinity.
“Access to significantly more confidential data”
As the system has only been accessible from a “VPN” since the fall of 2023, i.e. more than a year after the report was written, the investigator “necessarily had to take control of it remotely”, reported to AFP two of the leaders of Le Canard, Erik Emptaz and Hervé Liffran.
However, no authorization to carry out a digital search under the authority of a magistrate appears in the report, according to them. These facts “are particularly serious”, they estimated: “Once introduced into the private wifi network of the Canardthe investigating service found itself in a position to access much more confidential data.”
A “judicial headlong rush” by management
Conversely, the SNJ-CGT section of Canard Enchainé, of which Christophe Nobili is a union delegate, minimized what according to it is only an “incredible story” and denounced a “judicial headlong rush” by management. According to the union, the management’s complaint aims to “create a procedural incident” to “postpone” or “invalidate” the trial of the two former leaders, scheduled for October at the Paris Criminal Court.
The complaint also aims to “blacken” Christophe Nobili, also author of “Cher Canard”, “by accusing him of having thrown at the cops», Judged the SNJ-CGT in a press release, arguing that the PJ investigator had technically “not been able to go further” than the cover page of the newspaper’s internal system. “All of this is a pathetic strategic diversion,” the union delegate, whose dismissal by Le Canard was twice refused by the labor inspectorate, told AFP.