Madame Valls et son drôle d'orchestre + French prime minister red-faced over wife’s orchestral ties to African autocrat

Madame Valls et son drôle d'orchestre

REVELATIONS. Anne Gravoin rêvait de jouer avec les plus grands musiciens. Un jour, un homme d’affaires providentiel lui a proposé de créer un orchestre classique dont elle aurait la direction artistique : l’Alma Chamber Orchestra. L'épouse du Premier ministre n’a pas hésité et s’est retrouvée au cœur des réseaux de la Françafrique.

Premier violon de l'Alma Chamber Orchestra, Anne Gravoin joue à Tunis, le 20 février 2015, pour diffuser "un message de paix". (AHMET IZGI/Anadolu Agency)

Hors de question de rester dans l'ombre de son mari, tout Premier ministre qu'il soit. A 50 ans, Anne Gravoin voulait montrer qu'elle n'était pas seulement la violoniste de Johnny Hallyday ou de Nolwenn Leroy. La voici depuis 2013 à la tête d'un orchestre, l'Alma Chamber Orchestra, qui dit vouloir "diffuser un message de paix et de fraternité". Il s'est déjà produit au Maghreb, en Afrique du Sud, au Moyen-Orient, et le 8 janvier dernier, à la Philarmonie de Paris. Anne Gravoin en est le premier violon et la directrice artistique.

Un orchestre qui, au fil des mois, a aimanté l’intérêt d’une mosaïque de personnages, au carrefour de la politique, des affaires, de la diplomatie parallèle, tous gravitant autour de Mme Valls officiellement par "amour de la musique". On y trouve pêle-mêle : un marchand d’armes proche du président congolais Denis Sassou-Nguesso ; un vieux routier de la Françafrique décoré en juin dernier des insignes d'officier de la Légion d'honneur par Manuel Valls en personne ; un raider boursier reconverti dans la vente de tenues militaires, plusieurs fois épinglé par la justice et l'Autorité des Marchés financiers, qui héberge les bureaux d'Anne Gravoin ; et enfin, un businessman naviguant entre la France et le Koweït…

• Zouhir Boudemagh : il est le mécène à l'origine de l'Alma Chamber Orchestra, et aussi son président. Un mystérieux homme d'affaires d'origine algérienne, représentant en France du groupe Al Sayer, un conglomérat koweïtien. La légende veut que, dévasté par la mort de sa femme, il ait voulu créer un orchestre classique afin de lui rendre hommage. C'est par l'entremise de Mohamed Mestar, le producteur de Faudel et de Rachid Taha, qu'il fait la connaissance d'Anne Gravoin, à l'automne 2012.
• Jean-Yves Ollivier : Figure de la Françafrique, il est l'homme de confiance du président du Congo-Brazzaville, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, réélu le 20 mars dans un climat d'extrême tension. Sollicité par Zouhir Boudemagh, Jean-Yves Ollivier a aidé à l’organisation de la tournée de l'Alma Chamber Orchestra en Afrique du Sud, en avril 2015. Avec la Fondation Brazzaville, qu’il préside, il a aussi parrainé le concert de l’orchestre à la Philarmonie de Paris. Il a reçu les insignes d’officier de la Légion d’honneur des mains de Manuel Valls en juin 2015, deux mois après la tournée sud-africaine.
• Ivor Ichikowitz : président de Paramount, le plus important groupe d'armement en Afrique, ce richissime Sud-Africain est le principal fournisseur d'armes (blindés, avions de combat) de Denis Sassou-Nguesso. Sa Fondation Ichikowitz, partenaire de l'Alma Chamber Orchestra, a pris en charge la logistique et la promotion des concerts donnés à Johannesburg, à Durban et à Soweto.
• François Gontier : PDG du conglomérat Eaux et Electricité de Madagascar (EEM), il sous-loue des bureaux, avenue Victor-Hugo à Paris, à la société d'Anne Gravoin, AG Productions. Président d'une entreprise qui fournit des tenues militaires aux armées africaines, il a été deux fois condamné par la justice et plusieurs fois poursuivi par l'Autorité des Marchés financiers. Il est aujourd'hui mis en examen pour "exercice illégal de la profession de banquier".

Sollicitée par "l'Obs", Anne Gravoin décrit son rôle, dans un bref courrier électronique, comme celui d'un simple "prestataire". […]

David Le Bailly et Caroline Michel

http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/politique/20160329.OBS7305/madame-valls-et-son-drole-d-orchestre.html

French prime minister red-faced over wife’s orchestral ties to African autocrat

Manuel Valls and his wife Anne Gravoin Credit: Patrick Kovarik /AFP

Manuel Valls, the French prime minister, faced embarrassment on Thursday over reports that an orchestra led by his glamorous violinist wife has links to a string of murky figures, from an African dictator’s right-hand man to a convicted tax fraudster.

Anne Gravoin, 50, is a classically trained violinist who regularly plays with veteran French rocker Johnny Hallyday and other Gallic crooners, earning her the nickname of “violinist to the stars”.

However, her reported dream has always been to play with the very top musicians of the classical world. “She’d had enough of being seen as a pop musician,” a friend told Nouvel Obs, the weekly magazine.

So when a wealthy Kuwait-based businessman, Zouhir Boudemagh, offered to put her at the helm of an “orchestra to promote peace and fraternity” three years ago, she jumped at the chance.

On January 8, one of her musical dreams came true when she led her Alma Chamber Orchestra at Paris’ new Philharmonie concert hall in accompanying Martha Argerich, the legendary Argentinean pianist.

In the audience sat a brochette of French political heavyweights, from her prime minister husband to Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, president François Hollande’s advisor, as well as TV celebrities.

Anne Gravoin Credit: Kasia Wandycz/Getty

Some reviews of the quality of the ensemble have been damning, with Le Figaro’s music critic, Christian Merlin, slamming it as an orchestra of “mercenaries” with a “cold and flat string sonority”.

“It takes much more than a few phone calls to forge a common sound – that’s the musical lesson of this concert over and above the humanitarian one,” he wrote.

Ms Gravoin reportedly has little time for such snooty reviews, dismissing them with the phrase: “The purists can go to hell.”

She is now facing far more embarrassing revelations that the orchestra is kept afloat thanks to a string of individuals with close links to “Françafrique” – France’s often murky ties to African dictators harking back to its colonial days.

The initial main benefactor was Mr Boudemagh, an Algerian former pilot with high-level defence contacts who runs a small luxury car company which made losses of €6.4 million (£5 million) last year for a turnover of less than €400,000.

Last April, he sought new partners for the orchestra’s South Africa tour, calling in his “friends” Jean-Yves Ollivier and Ivor Ichikowitz, both known to be close to Denis Sassous-Nguesso, president of Congo-Brazzaville who has reigned over the country for the past 32 years and just changed the constitution to continue doing so.

Mr Sassou-Nguesso is currently under investigation in France suspected of channeling part of his country’s oil profits to his family to buy fleets of luxury cars and properties in Paris and the Riviera in the so-called “ill-gotten gains” probe.

In drawing up a list of assets, judges were intrigued to discover that Mr Sassou-Nguesso spent €1.18 million between 2005 and 2011 on shirts and suits alone and an estimated €60 million on properties.

Mr Ollivier is one of his key aides while Mr Ichikowitz is his main arms supplier and at the helm of Paramount Group, Africa's largest private defence and aerospace fir.

Mr Ollivier presides a peace foundation called Fondation Brazzaville, founded by Mr Sassou-Nguesso while Mr Ichikowitz presides another called the Ichikowitz Foundation. The latter took charge of logistics and promotion of the Alma Chamber Orchestra’s South Africa tour, while the Fondation Brazzaville sponsored the Paris concert in January. Mr Ollivier, however, denies there was any “financial or material partnership”.

Mr Valls bestowed on Mr Ollivier the officier de la Légion d’honneur – France’s highest award – last June two months after the South Africa tour.

In an email, the prime minister told Nouvel Obs: “I met Jean-Yves Ollivier three or four times. Mr Ollivier is not a friend.”

It also transpires that the offices of Ms Gravoin production company, AG Productions, is sub-letting from a company owned by a certain François Gontier, a former broker and business acquaintance of Mr Boudemagh who has convictions for tax fraud and sharing insider information. The company he now runs, Magforce International, is currently under investigation for “corruption of foreign agents” in the sale of army kits to Mali.

Mr Boudemagh’s lawyers have denied anything untoward. “There is not the slightest shadow in the life of Mr Boudemagh, nor in the funding of the orchestra that has productions around the world and is paid for by Mr Zouhir Bougemagh alone.”

Mr Vall’s straight-talking spouse is no stranger to controversy. In 2012, when her husband was interior minister, she sparked outrage by mocking then prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault’s wife Brigitte, remarking: “It has to be said that a musician is a little more glamorous than Mrs Ayrault, a German teacher from the suburbs of Nantes!”.

Later that year, Mr Valls was obliged to forcefully deny reports in Le Canard Enchaîné, the investigative weekly, that he ordered the police to clear his Paris neighbourhood of tramps and gipsies so his wife could “shop in peace”.

The controversy comes at a bad time for Mr Valls – once the most popular member of the Hollande government but whose approval rating, at 27 per cent, has hit an all-time low since he became prime minister in April 2014.

By Henry Samuel, Paris

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/31/french-prime-minister-red-faced-over-wifes-orchestral-ties-to-af/