LUSA 08/08/2025

Lusa - Business News - Portugal: Portuguese Paris city councillor condemned for conflict of interest

Paris, Aug. 7, 2025 (Lusa) - A Paris court on Thursday sentenced Portuguese Paris city councillor Hermano Sanches Ruivo to six months in prison, suspended, and a €5,000 fine for conflict of interest and breach of trust.

“This is a case based on an accusation of influence peddling that was empty. From the outset, we refuted the accusation of money laundering and tax fraud,” Hermano Sanches Ruivo’s lawyer, Hèlene Lecat, adding that during the hearing the public prosecutor's office had dropped “the facts of breach of trust” and that “there was no intent” in the offence of unlawful taking of interests, which “is, in fact, a formal crime”.

Hermano Sanches Ruivo, 59, who left his post as deputy head of European Affairs at the Paris city council about four years ago, was tried on 26 June at the Paris court for crimes of conflict of interest and breach of trust, with the sentence handed down today.

The court also declared him ineligible to stand for election for three years and ordered him to pay €1,500 to the Paris city council, going beyond the public prosecutor's office's request for acquittal on the charge of breach of trust and a three-month suspended prison sentence for the crime of conflict of interest.

“I am very shocked that the court went beyond the request of the public prosecutor’s office, which wanted to make the Portuguese official pay, even decreeing his ineligibility. It is a decision taken to the detriment of the principle of doubt and the presumption of innocence,” Lecat said as she left the courtroom.

According to the French newspaper Le Parisien, the Paris city council, led by socialist Anne Hidalgo, requested a symbolic €1 in compensation for damages.

According to the lawyer, Hermano Sanches Ruivo's public image "was greatly affected" because "he did not participate in any deliberations," but was nevertheless convicted on "most of the charges."

The Portuguese, who holds elected office in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, was co-founder in 1991 and president of the association of Portuguese descendants in France, Cap Magellan, before going on to work as a paid consultant for the same organisation.

Contacted by Lusa, Hermano Sanches Ruivo said he intends to appeal the court's decision, which he considers “deeply unfair” and “incomprehensible”.

“I am astonished, including about the motivations, although at this point we do not have the full text explaining the decisions, but how can there be abuse of trust when the structure itself (Cap Magellan) did not file any complaint, and it was proven at the hearing that I was not chairing the association during those years,” he added.

In 2021, following an anonymous report of undeclared remuneration, in which the councillor was accused of participating in local authority deliberations that awarded subsidies to Cap Magellan, subsequently receiving salaries from the association itself for his duties as a consultant, the council decided to contact the local authority's ethics committee, thus initiating legal proceedings.

Hermano Sanches Ruivo was born in Alcains, Castelo Branco, and moved to France at a very young age. He has been a councillor at the Paris city council since 2008, elected for three consecutive terms of office. He resigned in December 2021 from his position as deputy mayor for European Affairs after the local authority's ethics council detected a "conflict of interest".

According to the politician, the decision “appears to be linked” to “the fact that he is accused of having participated in three votes (terms of office)” as part of Anne Hidalgo’s team, although he denied any benefit.

“The law is sufficiently incomplete, in the sense that the mere fact of having participated, of having had the possibility of supporting in some way, means that I am now being judged for that,” he said, adding that he cannot accept a decision that is “unfair” “when there was no breach of trust and no one filed a complaint for breach of trust.”

The Paris councillor, who will remain in office until March 2026, also stated that he did not have “the support he should have had” in the face of “a report that came from the Portuguese community”, but he guarantees that “neither the work nor the fight are over”, as he is still president of the association Ativa - France-Portugal Friendship Group of Cities and Local Authorities.

 

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