Defamation against Garrido and Corbière: former journalist from Le Point fined

On Monday, May 12, the Paris Criminal Court fined journalist Aziz Zemouri €4,000 for wrongly accusing former LFI members Raquel Garrido and Alexis Corbière of employing an undocumented cleaner in an article published in Le Point in 2022.

In its reasoning, the court referred to "a deficient factual basis" and denounced Aziz Zemouri's lack of willingness to "support the information collected" .

The president of the 17th chamber also fined Étienne Gernelle, the publication director of Le Point , €4,000. Raquel Garrido and Alexis Corbière will also be fined €6,000 in damages.

"It is unacceptable to publish false articles without any verification," declared Alexis Corbière after the deliberations. According to the Seine-Saint-Denis MP, this is a "debate of general interest, because everyone has the right to quality information."

The case dates back to June 21, 2022, with the publication of an article on the website of Le Point bearing the mention “Exclusive” and entitled: “The undocumented employee of Raquel Garrido and Alexis Corbière” .

The journalist Aziz Zemouri accused the couple of MPs from Seine-Saint-Denis of exploiting an undocumented cleaning lady whom they had "subjected to infernal workloads" .

The next day, the newspaper withdrew the article and publicly admitted its "false" and "mendacious" nature through its publication director.

Aziz Zemouri, who left the weekly after the affair, quickly offered his "most sincere apologies" , believing he had been "the victim of manipulation" by one of his police sources. The investigations led to Rudy Succar, a former driver for Jean-Christophe Lagarde , the outgoing MP and UDI candidate opposing Raquel Garrido.

After several interrogations, the former driver admitted to having posed as the cleaning lady to the journalist at the urgent, even "obsessive" request of Jean-Christophe Lagarde, because the latter had wanted to obtain compromising evidence against his competitor.

Jean-Christophe Lagarde, Rudy Succar and Noam Anouar, Aziz Zemouri's police contact, are all three indicted, notably for organized fraud, in this other part of the case, in which the former journalist from Le Point is a civil party alongside the Garrido-Corbière couple.