Former Mayor of French town found dead as trial begins

A former mayor of Tours has been found dead in a suspected suicide just as he was to go on trial over suspected kickbacks involving Chinese group weddings in the picturesque Loire Valley city.

Jean Germain, a Socialist senator, was found dead after failing to turn up for the start of Tuesday’s trial, French officials said.

A defence lawyer said half a dozen people are on trial over alleged kickbacks linked to €750,000 that the city spent from 2008 to 2011 to lure Asian visitors.

Some of the weddings were presided over by Germain while he was mayor.

Defence lawyer Dominique Tricaud told the Associated Press that Germain had suffered through the legal ordeal.

France’s political class was in shock at the death and President Francois Hollande expressed sadness.

Minutes into the trial, Mr Tricaud announced that a colleague had found a suicide note and his body was found later in town, attendees said. The court abruptly adjourned the case until October.

The apparent suicide quickly reverberated through France’s political class, and appeared likely to cast a pall over a fairytale tradition among some Chinese couples who chose Tours as a romantic getaway spot for tying the knot.

The city splashed out tens of thousands of euros to set up a stand at the Shanghai World Expo in 2010 and send a delegation of dozens of representatives, one defence lawyer said.

Germain was a mayor for nearly two decades until 2014 and most recently a Socialist senator.

He presided over some of the weddings while he was a mayor and was facing charges including misuse of public funds and embezzlement, said Gerard Chautemps, a lawyer for defendant Lise Han, a former City Hall staffer who worked on drumming up business with Asia.

The city’s effort to lure Chinese visitors ended after the case came to light.

Court documents show that Han told investigators that she had had an amorous relationship with Germain.

Gerard Cebron de Lisle, a lawyer who is representing the city in its effort to recoup some of the 500,000 euro in estimated losses as part of the scam, said Germain never admitted to it.

Mr Cebron de Lisle also said Germain was never accused of enriching himself, but appeared to be motivated by making good on the project to lure Chinese visitors. Those suspected of benefiting financially from the scam included Han and her associates, he added.

The apparent suicide had echoes of the death of former Socialist prime minister Pierre Beregovoy, who shot himself with his bodyguard’s gun in a forest near his home in 1993. Political colleagues said Mr Beregovoy was depressed by a landslide Socialist electoral loss that year, and the disclosure that he had received an interest-free loan from a businessman later jailed on corruption charges.

Speaking to the Associated Press by phone, Mr Tricaud called his client “a martyr of the republic who was thrown to the dogs” – an allusion to a similar quotation used by former president Francois Mitterrand at Mr Beregovoy’s eulogy.

French news reports showed white-suited forensic teams in Tours, and broadcast archive images of Germain giving the traditional French “bise” cheek-kiss to one bride in an ornate ballroom filled with dozens of Asian couples. A photo on the China News website showed Germain in his red, white and blue mayor’s sash posing with dozens of kissing couples.

State prosecutor Jean-Luc Beck, in comments broadcast on the BFM-TV news channel, said there was little doubt Germain killed himself, noting that a colleague of Germain’s had found the note that indicated that he could not stand the thought of facing trial over the case.

The French Senate held a moment of silence in Germain’s honour, and Mr Hollande expressed his sadness, saying Germain had taken his own life “because he didn’t want his honour sullied”.

Prime minister Manual Valls told i-Tele television that he believed Germain would have had “the strength” to face the trial, adding: “I lost a friend.”