On to the defense. At the heart of the controversy and suspected of having interfered in the allocation of a grant from the Marianne fund to fight against separatism, which she launched in the spring of 2021, Marlène Schiappa denied on Wednesday June 14 having favored the main beneficiary association of the device. Then Minister Delegate for Citizenship, at the Ministry of the Interior, Marlène Schiappa announced on April 20, 2021 this fund, initially endowed with 2.5 million euros, six months after the assassination of Samuel Paty. It aimed to finance associations defending “the values of the Republic” by bringing, on social networks, “counter-discourses” to radical Islam.
Did the Minister intervene in any way in the process of selecting the 17 winning associations? And in particular with the Union of Physical Education and Military Preparation Societies (USEPPM), the main beneficiary association (355,000 euros planned), of which the essayist Mohamed Sifaoui was one of the two leaders?
Marlène Schiappa was for more than three hours under the fire of the frank interrogations of the rapporteur Jean-François Husson and the president Claude Raynal: “It’s extraordinary what you say! “, “It’s better to say it […] instead of going around! “, “We do not distribute public money without making a small report […], there is nothing of nothing at all”, we, for example, could hear them say.
“I take the responsibility that is mine, that is to say the political responsibility,” said the one who is now Secretary of State for the Social and Solidarity Economy. “I of course take responsibility for my decisions and my chief of staff,” she said. Marlène Schiappa conceded that “we could have done things differently”, that “there were dysfunctions in the organization and in the management” of this fund.
“I am formal […], I have at no time requested or ordered that Mohamed Sifaoui be prioritized or put on top of the pile. I had no reason to do it and I didn’t,” she replies, adding that “moreover, this file was supported by the administration,” implied by the CIPDR.
On her degree of closeness with Mohamed Sifaoui, Marlène Schiappa insists: “We are not friends, we have no common interest with such and such an organization”, “I have no personal relationship of any kind” with him. “I don’t shirk, I mean to take my responsibility, all my responsibility, but only my responsibility,” she also said. Meanwhile, Mohamed Sifaoui was heard as part of an investigation into suspected embezzlement of public funds, by investigators from the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses (OCLCIFF)
In the end, senators Raynal and Husson are not convinced. “Your audition is on hold,” said the first. Do you really continue to deny any responsibility for this fiasco? And to lament: “You gave birth to an idea, a political concept” with a “powerful communication time”, at the time of the launch, “and behind you tell us […] ‘it’s the administration'”. “When I read that the Paty family refuses to link their surname to the Marianne fund […], it hurts me,” added the senator.
In mid-April, Mohamed Sifaoui, one of the two USEPPM officials, assured that he had been encouraged to apply “by the members of Marlène Schiappa’s cabinet and by herself”. Over the hearings in the Senate, several testimonies showed that it was received several times, even before the launch of the fund, at the minister’s office.
“I don’t think it’s necessary” for her to leave the government, she then said lip service, sounding embarrassed to lend her support. This is not the opinion of LFI, which is firing red balls at the minister. “Resign,” thundered MP Aurélien Saintoul on Tuesday during questions to the government in the National Assembly.
The report of the General Inspectorate of Administration (IGA), published a week ago, is rather favorable to him. He notes that according to the “testimonies”, “the Minister Delegate stepped aside from the process, once the official launch was over” of the fund. On the other hand, the IGA denounced, among other things, the “privileged treatment” by the CIPDR of the USEPPM, causing the resignation of Christian Gravel. In this case, searches targeting several key players in the case took place on Tuesday as part of the judicial investigation. The financial police officers notably targeted the homes of Mohamed Sifaoui and Christian Gravel.