Laurent Vallet, president of the National Audiovisual Institute (INA), a public institution which preserves and promotes France’s audiovisual heritage, was arrested in Paris for allegedly buying drugs from a 17-year-old.
French media outlet Valeurs Actuelles reported on August 12 that the anti-crime brigade in the 12th arrondissement of Paris arrested Vallet on July 29.
Officers had spotted a young man acting suspiciously, consulting directions on his mobile phone GPS, then walking to a building where he dialled an access code and entered an inner courtyard.
He entered the building briefly and left a few moments later.
Police officers were already waiting for him, arrested and interrogated the youth.
He initially denied doing anything wrong and claimed to have gone to visit a friend on the 3rd floor of the building he had entered.
The officers found €600 in cash on him and he allegedly then admitted he had handed over a bag of drugs.
When they went to the third floor of the building, they found a man who allegedly confessed to having bought cocaine for the same amount. That man was Vallet, Valeurs Actualles reported.
Both Vallet and the 17-year-old were arrested.
Contacted by Valeurs actuelles, the Paris prosecutor’s office reportedly said: “As for any user and in accordance with criminal policy, as this was a first arrest, the person concerned was directed to a therapeutic injunction.”
Vallet was reappointed for a third five-year term at the head of the National Audiovisual Institute, in the Council of Ministers, on May 15, on the proposal of the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, five days before the end of his second term.
His predecessor, Agnès Saal, had left in disgrace over the embezzlement of public funds, including over €40,000 in travel expenses in 10 months. She was convicted for that in 2016.
Vallet has had a long career in the public sector and had worked in the General Directorate of the Treasury, the Financial Department of France Télévisions and the office of the Socialist Minister of the Economy Laurent Fabius before being appointed Director General of the Institute for the Financing of Cinema and Cultural Industries (IFCIC).
France’s ‘high society’ has apparently grown, as experimenting with drugs has soared. https://t.co/OZleBBxJls
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) January 16, 2025
