Two years suspended prison sentence for former LREM deputy Jean-Jacques Bridey for embezzlement of public funds.

The former Renaissance MP for Val-de-Marne, Jean-Jacques Bridey, was sentenced on Thursday, June 4, 2026, to two years’ suspended imprisonment by the 32nd correctional chamber of the Paris judicial court for embezzlement of public funds and corruption during the period from 2013 to 2019. The verdict was delivered at 1:30 PM, two months after the hearing on April 2, 2026, at the conclusion of which the national financial prosecutor’s office had requested a suspended prison sentence accompanied by a €300,000 fine and a disqualification from holding public office. The details of the fine and additional penalty were not specified at the time of publication.

Bridey, 72, born in Nice on May 7, 1953, is a prominent figure in Val-de-Marne politics. He served as mayor of Fresnes from 2001 to 2017, at which point he had to hand over the keys to the town hall to avoid the accumulation of mandates after being re-elected as an MP in June 2017. Elected under the Socialist Party banner in 2012, he was re-elected under the LREM label in 2017 and chaired the National Defense and Armed Forces Commission of the National Assembly from 2017 to 2019. He was one of Emmanuel Macron’s early supporters and remains the president of Renaissance in Val-de-Marne.

The charges against him are based on two distinct counts. The first, embezzlement of public funds, involves the illegal use of the representative mandate expense allowance (IRFM) between 2013 and 2019: personal expenses paid with this public fund, contributions to the PS paid via the IRFM while benefiting from the corresponding tax deductions, and the deposit of more than €45,000 in checks into his personal account without justification, as well as the reimbursement of restaurant expenses by the Fresnes mixed economy development company (SEMAF), of which he was president. The total amount of embezzlement is estimated at €145,749 according to the PNF file. The second charge, corruption, concerns the accumulation of elected officials’ allowances exceeding the legally permitted limit, reported since 2017 by the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP).

An investigation conducted by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office since 2019

The investigation was opened by the PNF in September 2019 following the transmission of the HATVP file. The trial had been postponed twice – first to September 4, 2025, and then to April 2, 2026 – due to a lack of notice to victims which prevented all potentially harmed institutions from being heard. The association Anticor joined the procedure with a complaint to the PNF in 2022, denouncing the lack of civic control over the use of advances on mandate expenses. The city of Fresnes had filed as a civil party a few weeks before the hearing.

During the trial on April 2, the hearing lasted more than seven hours. The prosecutor of the PNF requested “heavy penalties” according to the terms of Citoyens.com, the only media outlet that covered the hearing in detail, combining a suspended prison sentence, a €300,000 fine, and a disqualification from holding public office.

A political comeback hindered by the procedure

The legal proceedings have weighed on Bridey’s local political ambitions. Despite the imminent trial, he submitted his list for the March 2026 municipal elections in Fresnes in February 2026. He received 13% in the first round and 11.5% in the second – an insufficient score to influence the outcome of the election, won by Christophe Carlier at the head of a united right list with 45% in the second round. The Fresnes town hall thus shifted to the right for the first time in twenty-five years.

The presumption of innocence that protected Jean-Jacques Bridey until this ruling no longer applies to the charges for which he has been found guilty. He has a period to appeal.