Summary: The EPO's management is once again scattering/throwing EPO budget at PR agencies and media companies (publishers/broadcasters) to disseminate a bunch of puff pieces and virtually ignore the very obvious conflict of interest, which should be a scandal on par with that of FIFA (resulting in the arrest of its boss, Mr. Blatter)

THE staff of the EPO is really upset. We can see that. We hear about that. It's like no matter how abusive the boss is, nothing ever happens to him. He's above the law.

"The staff of the EPO is really upset.""I was surprised to see that the administrator of the Theatre Alexandre Dumas (TAD) in St Germain en Laye is not anyone else than the mayor, Arnaud Péricard, himself," told us one reader, "seconded by, you guess it, Benoît Battistelli . As such the TAD is a part of the administration in St Germain en Laye. Here a link with the TAD team (L’équipe du TAD | Théâtre Alexandre-Dumas de Saint-Germain-en-Laye) who are themselves getting involved in a scandal without being aware of it. With the inventor of the year show taking place in the town where Benoit Battistelli is deputy mayor, there is a MAJOR conflict of interest, and a MAJOR scandal in perspective for which M. Battistelli and the accomplices will be held accountable."

Here is the list of the people involved/implicated:

TAD team

Arnaud Péricard Maire-adjoint chargé de la Culture (deputy mayor in charge of culture)

Benoît Battistelli Conseiller municipal délégué au Théâtre (town counsellor in charge of the Thatre)

Guillaume Estienne Directeur général adjoint des Services (deputy general director for services)

Francine Chassepot Directrice de la Vie culturelle (director in charge of cultural life)

Theatre team

Directrice déléguée (deputy director) Sophie Bauer

Directeur artistique (artistic director) Benoît Dissaux

Directeur technique (technical director) Joël Haton

Gestionnaire administrative, accueil des équipes artistiques (administrative management, reception of artistic teams) Cathy Alexandre-Skrzypczak

Chargé de la billetterie et de l'accueil (in charge of ticketing and welcome) Jérémie Dufour

Régisseur des recettes (proceeds management) Mercedes Figuereo

Chargée de la communication et des relations publiques (public relations and communication) Johanna Julien

Régisseur général (stage manager) Emmanuel Monnet

Régisseur lumière (lighting designer) Franck Mérel

Régisseurs plateau (stage technicians) Christian Laurent David Costerg

Régisseur son et vidéo (sound and image technician) Thomas Weyant

Agent de sécurité - Affichage (security officer - display) Rudy Vasseur

We are hoping to have contact details soon. A day ago we (re)published contact details for various key people in the administration (not just of the threatre). We urge readers to write to these people, preferably but not necessarily in French (most of them are fluent in English, too). It's not a campaign of harassment but merely an act of accountability -- a concept that Battistelli seems incapable of grasping.

"It's like no matter how abusive the boss is, nothing ever happens to him. He's above the law.""The time has come! These are the European Inventor Award 2018 finalists," the EPO wrote some hours ago. They neglect to mention the likely corruption which everyone at the EPO seems to have whispered about for months. How can he get away with it? As we put it a few weeks ago, what we have here is "One Last Battistelli Heist: Millions of Euros for Saint-Germain-en-Laye" (his town where he works).

Here's today's fluff from the EPO: (warning: epo.org link)

The Award winners will be announced on 7 June in Paris, Saint-Germain-en-Laye...

[...]

"The 2018 Award finalists demonstrate that Europe continues to be a world leader in innovation," said EPO President Benoît Battistelli.

He makes it a world leader in corruption.

"It's not a campaign of harassment but merely an act of accountability -- a concept that Battistelli seems incapable of grasping.""EPO corruption continues," Benjamin Henrion wrote about it today, as "Saint-Germain-en-Laye is Batistelli's commune."

People are noticing this, but the media refuses to cover or even mention this in passing. The truth of the matter is, the EPO has been bribing the media for a long time (we are covering many examples) and EPO management has once again hired Echolot Public Relations (Barbara Geier) to spam British media about this event. Guess at whose expense...

"People are noticing this, but the media refuses to cover or even mention this in passing."We can see it based on this press release from today. How many PR agencies is the EPO hiring? We've lost count. In the UK alone it has got contracts with at least 3 PR agencies. Some contracts are 'weighed' at over a million euros! Talk about money down the drain. EPO management misuses stakeholders' money for puff pieces such as these in the Irish media [1, 2, 3]. Did they literally pay for these? Indirectly perhaps? Earlier today (and it's only the start of this week!) the EPO played the media, then linked to (retweeted) the outcome, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9].

How many PR agencies in how many countries is the EPO hiring this time around? Maybe someone can leak to us documents that may shed light...

Our jaw was on the floor seeing how the EPO even retweeted extremists like Watchtroll and its "bucket of deplorables" several hours ago. Bad optics? No tact? Maybe they don't understand what they just did...

"Are there any major publishers/broadcasters that Battistelli has not yet corrupted using EPO budget? Or threatened for 'daring' to speak of EPO abuses?"Looking at the underlying 'article' with all the Battistelli quotes embedded throughout, it looks like a puff piece for the EPO; maybe it was partially ghostwritten by a PR agency. Gene Quinn certainly lacks ethics, so writing this rubbish could/might as well be an EPO partnership. Remember that the EPO already passed money to IAM through one of its PR agencies.

Roger Highfield, judging for Battistelli's very 'special' event (money passage), was retweeted by the EPO after he had posted this puff piece in the site of the Science Museum. It says this:

Roger Highfield, Director of External Affairs, Science Museum Group and judge of the European Inventor Award introduces this year’s finalists and explains how to vote for your favourite.

This isn't the first time we see Roger Highfield pushing the EPO's agenda and being retweeted by the EPO; as we showed last year, it's no longer a secret that the EPO pays travel expenses (flights) for so-called 'journalists' who cover these events. This, in our view, is a sort of bribery. But such is the moral level of the EPO these days. We still wait to see which large publisher -- if any -- will mention the huge scandal in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Are there any major publishers/broadcasters that Battistelli has not yet corrupted using EPO budget? Or threatened for 'daring' to speak of EPO abuses? ⬆