2023-05-10 18:13:40
The Senate voted on Wednesday May 10 to grant investigative powers to the Finance Committee so that it conducts an information mission on the Marianne fund launched in 2021 by Marlène Schiappa to fight against separatism. The finance commission will thus have for three months the important powers attributed to the commissions of inquiry: the people it wishes to hear are required to respond to the summons and take an oath.
The commission of inquiry, whose rapporteur will be Senator Jean-François Husson (Les Républicains), should examine “the creation of the Marianne fund, the selection of projects and the allocation of subsidies, the control of their execution and the results obtained with regard to the objectives of the fund”.
It will begin its work next week with the hearing on Tuesday of the prefect Christian Gravel, secretary general of the interministerial committee for the prevention of delinquency and radicalization (CIPDR), and magistrate Jean-Pierre Laffite, deputy secretary general of the CIPDR. The CIPDR coordinates the action of the ministries and the use of the budgetary means devoted to the policy of prevention of delinquency and radicalization, and, as such, the general secretariat is in charge of the administrative management of the fund.
A website and some publications
A judicial investigation was opened on May 4 for suspicions of embezzlement of public money in the management of this fund. The Marianne Fund, a project to promote “Values of the Republic”was launched in April 2021 by Marlène Schiappa – then Minister Delegate for Citizenship – after the assassination of Professor Samuel Paty.
The case began at the end of March with revelations from the weekly Marianne et France 2. According to their investigation, the main beneficiary of the fund, the association known as the Union of Physical Education and Military Preparation Societies (USEPPM), received an endowment of 355,000 euros which would have fed only a website and unfollowed posts on social media. Some 120,000 euros were also used to pay two of its former leaders.
The Mediapart website then revealed that several left-wing personalities had been denigrated in content posted online by another structure financed by the fund, Rebuild the common, which obtained 330,000 euros.
#Marianne #fund #subject #commission #inquiry #Senate