The struggle for ethics in politics is sinking into crisis. The Administrative Court of Paris, in a decision of Friday June 23, 2023, withdrew its anti-corruption approval from the Anticor association. The decision has retroactive effect to April 2, 2021, because the court, concretely, canceled an order issued on that date, which renewed the approval, granted for the first time in 2015. “The scope of the decision is relative, comments a lawyer. Proceedings initiated by Anticor in politico-financial matters are not automatically null and void. »
The president of Anticor, Élise Van Beneden, denounced “a serious attack on democracy, as well as on freedoms of association”. It is nevertheless difficult to speak of conspiracies or retaliatory measures against an association that would disturb, because the blow comes from within. The administrative court was seized by two former members, Yves Sassiaut and Claude Bigel. The latter, a former accountant, who became a member of the association’s ethics committee, was expelled in 2020. In a letter to the prosecutor dated June 16, 2020, he explained that he had been prevented from exercising his “role of auditor in the rules of an association”.
Anticor was then going through an internal crisis, caused by the revelation of the existence of a very regular, anonymous donor, who had paid tens of thousands of euros to the association. It was businessman Hervé Vinciguerra, also a supporter of the media Blast, founded by Denis Robert and Élise Van Beneden. Questioned on May 20, 2020 by a parliamentary commission of inquiry devoted to the independence of justice, with Éric Alt, vice-president of Anticor and magistrate, Élise Van Beneden had affirmed that the management of Anticor did not know the identity of this donor. Later leaked emails showed she knew him.
There is nothing to suggest that Hervé Vinciguerra (who has always refused to speak) tried to exploit Anticor. The lack of transparency around its contributions was, however, very badly perceived internally. The episode reignited latent tensions. The atmosphere has been particularly heavy within Anticor for several years. Members are demanding that the association pay more attention to its own ethics, insofar as it claims to monitor those of elected officials.
In June 2020, the former mayor (PS then Parti de gauche) of Bouguenais, Françoise Verchère, resigned from her position as local Anticor referent for Loire-Atlantique, publishing a vitriolic letter of resignation: “Transparency and democracy, these are values that I thought I would find when I joined the board of directors of Anticor. Alas, I regret to have to say that my passage in its national authorities will have been the last disappointment of the militant that I am. Not the cruelest, I have armored myself over time, but perhaps the most bitter. »
Reacting to the loss of approval, the former elected official does not hide her exasperation, “in front of these activists, today gathered in a chorus of lamentations, while they shot themselves with bullets in the foot “. Françoise Verchère does not forgive Anticor’s managers for their refusal to confront a recurring problem head-on. The Anticor name is misused for personal gain. “Since you find that being elected is not a problem for being a director, why do we have to search on Google to find out that one called for Marine Le Pen to vote, that another, without stepping back, supports a LFI list while doing meetings on Anticor municipal proposals? she asked in her resignation letter.
The case of Jean-Christophe Picard is particularly eloquent. In February 2020, he resigned from the presidency of Anticor to join, overnight, the municipal list “Nice ecological”, led by entrepreneur Jean-Marc Governatori. And this, while Anticor had campaigned against Christian Estrosi, becoming a civil party, on May 26, 2016, in the so-called Grand Stade de Nice affair!
The Finistère section Anticor29 launched a resounding campaign against Richard Ferrand, in the context of the Mutuelles de Bretagne affair. In 2020, one of the activists maneuvering against the former President of the Assembly ran for the legislative elections against him, under the label of the Résistons movement! by Jean Lassalle. Ethical or unethical? Anticor has never decided.