Pascal Pavageau can have a hard tooth when he talks about himself: “pretentious”, “poor manager”, “naive”… But, if the former general secretary of Force Ouvrière (FO) engages in this self-criticism, Wednesday September 13, before the 17e criminal chamber of the Paris court, it is to better challenge the offenses with which he is accused. The clandestine registration of high-ranking members of his organization? He insists that he never asked for it. According to him, this low-level police operation, which caused a scandal almost five years ago and forced him to resign, was the result of a sort of misunderstanding between him and his close guard: “I should have been clearer in the instructions. » In short, he has some responsibility, but is not guilty.
This line of defense resembles the one he adopted at the start of the affair. On October 10, 2018, The chained Duck revealed the existence of two listings of 127 FO leaders, with, for each of them, comments of various natures (political connections, orientation, etc.). In some cases, the essments were accompanied by insults (“junk”, “mafia”…). Developed more than a year before Mr. Pavageau was elected head of FO, in April 2018, during a congress in Lille (where he was alone in the running), these documents also clified people according to their proximity with the union leader. At the time, he spoke of a “nice stupidity”attributed to two of his collaborators, Cécile Potters and Justine Braesch: he believed that they were carrying out a simple “memo” from elements he had provided to them.
Today, these two women, also referred to the 17e room, acknowledge having participated in the preparation of the files. Mme Potters even explains that it was she who had “the idea” to create a section with information on the 127 executives. It was about “train” the future management team of Mr. Pavageau, before the Lille congress, so that they knew where they were setting foot in a house shaken by internal divisions.
“Cowardice”
But the two defendants do not want to bear the blame alone: according to them, Mr. Pavageau knew about it. The fact that he contests it demonstrates a “cowardice that I don’t understand”tackle Mme Potters at the helm.
At times, the hearing turns into a settling of scores. Mr. Pavageau poses as the victim of a cabal: the leak of files in The chained Duck was a retaliatory measure against his plan to conduct a “audit” of the union’s accounts, after the “abominations” that he had discovered – by evoking hidden financing in favor of parties. “Relucidations”, reacts Frédéric Souillot. The current secretary general of FO speaks on behalf of his organization, a civil party in the case, emphasizing that it has been “dirty”.
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