Two years after being dismissed from her post, the former director of the classical music festival "La Folle jour" in Nantes was on trial for embezzlement of public funds. On Thursday, the prosecutor's office in Nantes requested a four-year suspended prison sentence for Joëlle Kerivin, for acts committed between 2014 and 2021, while she worked for the public limited company of mixed economy. The sums are substantial: 232,000 euros for "La Folle jour" and 61,000 euros for the Simone de Beauvoir space, a space for the defense of women's rights that Joëlle Kerivin chaired.
Aged 50, the former director is also prosecuted for breach of trust. "I did anything," assumed Joëlle Kerivin, who was confused in apologies explaining that she had "committed the irreparable". "I lost my footing everywhere, at all levels" and "I damaged people who are very dear to me," she explained to the bar. The requisitions are "severe" and "underline both the seriousness in terms of amount, but also the seriousness that takes into account the fact that Mrs. Kerivin has obviously organized a system to escape all controls and betray the trust of all her partners," said Emmanuel Cheneval, lawyer for René Martin, the founder of "La Folle Journée".
A "cavalry" system
According to the lawyer, the defendant had set up "a cavalry system", which consists of taking money, which she repaid with money that she re-drained. "Accounting, it can pass," added the lawyer. The main financier of the structure, the city of Nantes had filed a complaint for accounting irregularities. According to the city's lawyer, the money was spent "on clothes, on blow-drying". The prosecutor's office also requested a one-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 12,000 euros for the auditor, also prosecuted in this case. The judgement was reserved until 4 May.
- Nantes
- Pays de la Loire
- Festival
- Music
- Classical music
- Misappropriation of public funds
- Money
- Scam
- Justice