It is one of the grants that was at the heart of opposition criticism of Anne Hidalgo. The Paris Administrative Court of Appeal on Friday canceled a grant of 100,000 euros granted in 2019 by the City of Paris to the NGO SOS Méditerranée, judging that the town hall had interfered with the foreign policy of France. “Extremely proud that the municipal majority votes the grant of 100,000 euros to this essential association. It is about our dignity and our values, ”tweeted the PS mayor in November.
By granting this aid, “the Council of Paris must be regarded as having intended to take sides and interfere in matters relating to the foreign policy of France and the competence of the institutions of the European Union, as well as in disputes, political nature, between Member States”, judge the magistrates. A subsidy however granted each year since 2016 to this association of assistance to migrants.
Since 2015, SOS Méditerranée has regularly chartered boats in the Mediterranean to rescue migrants trying to reach Europe by sea. Its expeditions, and those of other NGOs, have been the source of diplomatic disputes between EU member states. , who passed on the responsibility of welcoming the rescued migrants.
A subsidy that irritated the Italian far right
In July 2019, the town hall of Paris, led by socialist Anne Hidalgo, decided to grant aid of 100,000 euros to SOS Méditerranée and to decorate the captains of a humanitarian ship from another NGO, prosecuted by justice in Italy for aiding illegal immigration. This decision had outraged the Italian extreme right, in particular the Minister of the Interior at the time, Matteo Salvini.
The Paris court recalls “that a local authority cannot (…) disregard the international commitments of France nor, by allocating a subsidy, take sides in a conflict or an international dispute of a political nature or interfere in the conduct of foreign policy from France “.
However, “the leaders of the association have also publicly criticized and declared that they want to thwart by their action the policies defined and implemented by the European Union and the Member States in terms of immigration and asylum”, note the magistrates. “The Council of Paris heard to appropriate the criticisms of this association against these migration policies”, they add, citing the content of the debates on this subject within it.
In Le Parisien’s series on the accounts of the capital, at most 7 billion euros in debt, we recalled a previous court decision concerning “municipal funds given to causes which can be considered very far from the daily life of Parisians “. Indeed, the administrative court had validated the possibility for a community to vote such a subsidy, in the name of the law specific to “decentralized cooperation”.
“Parisians, who have been able to welcome Ukrainian refugees perfectly, do not need such a wish to be made aware of the problem of migrants, declared David Alphand, vice-president of the LR group at the Paris Council, in the Figaro columns. If there are 100,000 euros too much in Paris, added the elected representative of the 16th century, let the nurseries of the capital benefit from it. Joined by AFP Friday afternoon, the town hall of Paris was not able to comment on the decision.