On Monday, WikiLeaks released an archive of nearly 72,000 emails from President Francois Macron's election campaign, including 21,075 DKIM verified emails, and almost 51,000 others which the whistleblower said could be expected to be authentic as well, based on statistical sampling.
Tourret, a veteran French politician and political ally of French President Emmanuel Macron, was elected to the French National Assembly in elections in June on an En Marche! party ticket.
The emails show a back and forth exchange between Tourret's personal email and buckled.eu, a shady online retailer which describes itself as a "premier supplier of the EU Reaserch Chemicals," (sic), and that four orders of 10 grams of 3-MMC were made at a total cost of over €750.
Despite its claim that its business is research chemicals, other 'fine products' sold on buckled.eu include cannabis seeds, cannabinoids, blotters, and other drugs and drug paraphernalia.
The emails show that the "research chemicals" were bought and paid for by Francois Machado, Tourret's personal assistant. The shipping address, amazingly, is 126 Rue de l'Universite, the address of the National Assembly building in Paris.
buckled.eu, describes 3-MMC as "one of our most popular chemicals," and one that's "becoming hard to produce," encouraging shoppers to "get it while you can." The site boasts that "at a purity of 99%+, this is one of the highest quality products currently on the market."
However, to insure itself, the site also claims that the product is meant for "research purchases," and "is not intended for human consumption."
If the emails turn out to be genuine, it's unclear what kinds of "research" the 69-year-old French lawmaker has been up to, but internet users have already begun a campaign to troll him. On Monday, shortly after the WikiLeaks dump, Tourret's image in his Wikipedia page was briefly changed to an image showing what looks like methamphetamine crystals.
En Marche! was hit with a massive email dump shortly before the second round of the presidential elections back in May. Tourret, one of the politicians at the heart of the controversy which erupted afterwards, denied accusations that he had purchased the drugs, and described evidence to the contrary as a "crude forgery."
The email dump also implicated Tourret in an expense scandal, showing him using his government expense account to charge movie tickets, golf games, and expenses at a Club Med in Senegal. Following the discovery, the politician admitted to having committed several "errors," and said that he has repaid €16,000 from his personal account.
Earlier this month, Tourret voiced his opposition to President Macron's campaign to "moralize public life," calling the initiative, which includes forcing officials to list the purchases made on their expense accounts, as "extraordinarily dangerous."
