The Council of State on Thursday rejected an appeal from the Hauts-de-France region, which has refused since 2020 to pay subsidies to the association managing the private Muslim high school Averroès, due to suspicions about its funding, a-t- we learned Friday, June 17 from the high court.
Read alsoIn Lille, Xavier Bertrand continues his arm wrestling against the Averroès high school
The Council of State considered that the administrative court of Lille, which had ordered in an interim decision of July 2021 the region led by Xavier Bertrand (LR) to pay these subsidies to this private high school in Lille, under contract with Education national, had "
not committed an error of law
".
The court had considered that the region was “
legally bound to pay this contribution, by the very fact of the status of establishment under a contract of association with public education of the private high school of which the association (Averroès) is the manager
”.
The sum at stake, nearly 275,000 euros, was to be paid by the region under the externship package for the year 2019/2020 but had been blocked in March 2020 due to suspicions of financing.
Xavier Bertrand had seized the Ministry of Education of the file after the publication of the book "
Qatar Papers
" by Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot reporting "
foreign funding
" of this high school.
According to him, a report from the General Inspectorate for Education, Sport and Research (IGESR) "
confirmed that the school had obtained a loan of 800,000 euros from the Mulhouse mosque which was repaid thanks to a donation from 850,000 euros from the NGO Qatar Charity in 2014
”.