French anti-corruption police have searched the headquarters of energy group Engie, formerly GDF Suez, as part of an ongoing investigation into suspicions that the company paid nearly €300,000 to then-MEP Rachida Dati in exchange for defending the gas sector’s interests in the European Parliament.
According to reports from Le Nouvel Obs and France Télévisions’ Complément d’enquête, officers from the OCLCIFF, France’s central office for combating corruption and financial offences, visited Engie’s headquarters on April 16.
They were seeking documentary evidence of payments allegedly made by the company in 2010 and 2011 to the now-defunct law firm STC Partners, which investigators believe was closely linked to Dati.
The suspected payments totalled approximately €299,000, with two transfers of €149,500 made in October 2010 and January 2011.
Investigators suspect the funds were ultimately intended for Dati in return for promoting pro-gas positions and tabling amendments favourable to the sector while she sat as a substitute member of the European Parliament’s industry and energy committee.
She is being investigated over alleged active and passive corruption, influence peddling involving an international public organisation, misuse of corporate assets, breach of trust and embezzlement of public funds by a person invested with a public mandate.
Dati has consistently denied wrongdoing. She has said she performed no paid work for GDF Suez during her time as an MEP, from 2009 to 2019, and did not receive the funds.
The case first surfaced in the French media years ago but took a sharper judicial turn after a preliminary investigation led to the opening of a formal judicial investigation by the Parquet National Financier on October 14, 2025.
Searches were already carried out in December 2025 at Dati’s home, at the culture ministry and at the city hall of Paris’s 7th arrondissement, where she serves as mayor.
Engie, for its part, previously opened an internal inquiry after the media revelations and confirmed that its accounting records showed the payments to the law firm.
The latest search of the company’s headquarters appears aimed at clarifying the exact nature and purpose of those transactions.
No charges have yet been brought against Dati or any Engie executives in this specific probe and the investigation remains ongoing.
The affair adds to mounting legal pressure on Dati, a prominent figure of the French centre-right who rose under former president Nicolas Sarkozy, serving as justice minister before later becoming an MEP for Les Républicains.
She is also due to stand trial in September 2026 in a separate case linked to Renault-Nissan.
In that case, she is accused of receiving around €900,000 in consulting fees between 2010 and 2012 while she was an MEP, allegedly in exchange for lobbying rather than genuine legal work. She denies wrongdoing in that case as well.
In addition, French prosecutors opened an investigation in September 2025 into whether Dati failed to declare 19 pieces of luxury jewellery and watches worth an estimated €420,000 in her ministerial assets declaration.
According to French media reports, the items were gifts from businessman Henri Proglio, former chief executive of EDF and Veolia. Dati’s lawyers have rejected allegations of any irregularity.
Dati, once sharply critical of Emmanuel Macron, made a surprise political shift when she accepted his offer to become culture minister in January 2024, a move that led to her expulsion from Les Républicains.
She has since remained one of the most high-profile and controversial figures in French politics.
