“So the time has come for me to withdraw from political life and devote myself to my family”. In a tweet published this Sunday evening, LREM MP Coralie Dubost announces her decision not to run for the legislative elections in Hérault, where she was elected in 2017. She had been singled out during the week by an article from Mediapart pointing to astronomical costs. It would thus have multiplied the expenses by using its envelope allocated by the Assembly. Among these costs are “monthly clothing expenses within a range of 1,500 to 2,000 euros”, according to a report consulted by Mediapart.
“For the past few days, my person has been targeted by unjust attacks which are a disservice to my political group, the electoral deadlines, and more generally, democracy” is moved by the MP at the end of her mandate. “I refuse to be the instrument of an anti-parliamentary cabal, in the same way that I refuse to lend myself to a ping-pong of justifications, which border on a phantasmagoric lynching on social networks” further specifies the ex- companion of Olivier Véran.
The politician from civil society insisted on the intimate nature of this decision in her letter. “Staying true to my values today means protecting the child I am carrying from all the vicissitudes of exposure and political life,” she writes. “I will not be a candidate for re-election. Two months ago, I lost my father, a great and honest man, I would have liked to devote more time to his last breaths, I want to devote peaceful ones to those of my newborn child” explains- her to also justify this decision.
“There are mandate outfits and personal outfits”
The “scandal” which surrounds his end of mandate, is evacuated but got the better of his political career. LREM deputy Coralie Dubost has indeed been singled out for her humane management of certain collaborators and the expensive use of her advances for mandate expenses, which she disputes, according to a Mediapart investigation based in particular on a report by the ethics officer of the ‘National Assembly.
According to this report from a human resources firm sent in the spring of 2021 to the ethics officer of the National Assembly, former collaborators of Coralie Dubost accuse her of having imposed on them “tasks relating to the personal sphere”, comments and behavior “devaluing” but also a “conflict of values” or “ethics” in particular on the use of its advances of mandate expenses. It is in particular a question of “monthly clothing expenses within a range of 1,500 to 2,000 euros” or “very high restaurant costs”, explains the report.
According to Mediapart, the deputy for Hérault, for example, spent up to 3,300 euros on clothing in October 2018. “There are mandate outfits and personal outfits, I don’t put the same things in my life. personal and in my life of mandate”, thus affirmed the parliamentarian to Mediapart.