the Senate commission of inquiry castigates a “fiasco” made of “opacity and casualness”

2023-07-06 15:32:14
Secretary of State Marlène Schiappa during her hearing by the Senate inquiry committee, June 14, 2023. (Photo Bertrand GUAY / AFP) BERTRAND GUAY / AFP

“The lack of rigor, opacity and casualness led to the fiasco” of the Marianne Fund. The words of Senator Jean-François Husson, (LR, Meurthe-et-Moselle), Thursday, July 6, are severe, up to the report that is about to make the commission of inquiry which he chaired. For five weeks, the senators interviewed the main actors in this affair, before submitting their report, which will be formalized at 6 p.m. The Marianne Fund is a “political stunt”denounces Mr. Husson, “ conceived as a major communication operation”, much more than as a real response to Islamism on social networks.

Read also: Marianne Fund: the issues and twists and turns of the case involving Marlène Schiappa

For the rapporteur, some of the associations that have benefited from the fund “did a real job”, but this is not the case for the two main ones. In the end, the « label » you Fonds Marianne “become a real burden”even “a ball attached to the allegory of the Republic”according to him.

The most problematic association is undoubtedly Mohamed Sifaoui’s Union of Physical Education and Military Preparation Societies (USEPPM), which received the main endowment from the Marianne fund, i.e. 355,000 euros, for a project that does not has hardly seen the light of day. Mr. Sifaoui was already in close contact with Ms. Schiappa’s cabinet before the launch of the fund, to which he was encouraged to apply.

Also read the interview: Article reserved for our Marianne Fund subscribers: “Did Marlène Schiappa lie or is she in denial of her responsibility? »

A relationship that made the entire selection process tainted with irregularities, “neither transparent nor fair”, as the severe report of the general administration inspectorate, commissioned to investigate the faults of the State in this file, had described.

During her hearing before the senators, Ms. Schiappa had evaded the questions and her responsibilities, referring the fault to her own cabinet. An interpretation that the senators refute. ” We interviewed her for a long time (…) I have never seen her propose tangible elements to our commission of inquiry. She had a lot of memory loss, there are some speeches that are appalling from my point of view, and distressing “notes Senator Husson, for whom the ” promise “ inherent in this device, “was not kept, which is fully the political responsibility of the minister”.

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