Marianne Fund: the Senate inquiry committee castigates a "fiasco" made of "opacity and casualness"

“The lack of rigor, opacity and flippancy 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 auditioned the main actors in this affair, before submitting their report, which will be formalized at 6 p.m. The Marianne fund is a “political coup”, denounces Mr. Husson, “conceived as a major communication operation”, much more than as a real response to Islamism on social networks.

For the rapporteur, some of the associations that have benefited from the fund “have done real work”, but this is not the case for the two main ones. In the end, the “label” of the Marianne fund “becomes a real burden”, even “a burden 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 liaison with Ms. Schiappa’s firm before the launch of the fund, to which he was encouraged to apply.

A relationship that has rendered the entire selection process tainted with irregularities, “neither transparent nor fair”, as the harsh report of the general inspection of the administration, commissioned to investigate the flaws of the status in this folder.

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 auditioned her for a long time (…) I never saw her offer our commission of inquiry tangible elements. 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, “did not been held, which is fully the political responsibility of the minister”.