New difficulty for the government: the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) opened, Thursday, May 4, a judicial investigation for suspicions of embezzlement of public funds in the management of the Marianne fund created by Marlène Schiappa in 2021 to fight against separatism.

This "Marianne Fund for the Republic" was launched in April 2021 by the minister a few months after the assassination of Professor Samuel Paty in the Yvelines, in order to "finance people and associations who will carry out speeches to promote the values of the Republic" and "fight against separatist speeches" online.

In recent weeks, the fund has been the subject of several reports to the courts after press articles criticizing the conditions for awarding subsidies and their use, which led the PNF to open a judicial investigation on Thursday.

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The public prosecutor confirmed to AFP this decision, revealed by France Inter, and said that the investigations related to the offenses of embezzlement of public funds, embezzlement of public funds by negligence, breach of trust and illegal taking of interests.

The case began at the end of March with revelations from the weekly Marianne and France 2. According to their investigation, the main beneficiary of the fund, the USEPPM association, received an endowment of 355,000 euros that would have only fed a website and publications little followed on social networks. Some 120,000 euros were also used to pay two of its former leaders.

The Mediapart website then revealed that several left-wing personalities had been denigrated in content posted online by another structure financed by the fund, "Reconstruire le commun", which obtained 330,000 euros.

Marlène Schiappa denounces "slander"

A first report was issued by Christian Gravel, head of the Interministerial Committee for the Prevention of Delinquency and Radicalization (CIPDR), which had been entrusted with the selection procedure of associations and whose role is questioned in the press.

Two other reports were sent to the justice by the PS mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, and the leader of the deputies of La France insoumise (LFI), Mathilde Panot.

For the elected LFI, "the facts are serious and question the responsibility of Marlène Schiappa in the creation, use and control of these public funds".

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The current Secretary of State for the Social and Solidarity Economy and Community Life has swept away "calumnies". She said on April 27 on Twitter that her lawyer would "sue for defamation all those who falsely accuse (her) of an action of favoritism".

"NONE of the winners of the Marianne Fund are my friend, or my relative, or whatever. They themselves denied it," she also wrote on April 22, stressing that she had "not validated the content" of the disputed videos of "Rebuilding the common", nor "asked to target political opponents".

Towards a commission of inquiry in the Senate

For his part, one of the two former leaders of the USEPPM, Mohamed Sifaoui, a journalist who took refuge in France after escaping four attacks in Algeria in the 1990s, said he had initiated legal proceedings to "restore the truth".

The Senate Finance Committee, dominated by the right-wing opposition, asked Wednesday to be endowed with the prerogatives of a commission of inquiry to also be able to look into this fund, while the General Inspectorate of Administration (IGA), seized by the Secretary of State for Citizenship, Sonia Backès, must make "end of June" an audit on this file.

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While the head of state and the government are challenged in the street for their pension reform, this judicial investigation is added to a list of investigations around Macronia.

Two judicial investigations were opened at the end of 2022 to investigate the links between the consulting firm McKinsey and the presidential majority.

The Keeper of the Seals, Eric Dupond-Moretti, is soon to be tried before the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), the ministers Olivier Dussopt (Labor) and Sébastien Lecornu (Army) are targeted by investigations of the PNF, while the secretary general of the Elysee, Alexis Kohler, is indicted for illegal taking of interests.

With AFP

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