When a Marianne hides another.
Last week, Marlène Schiappa provoked strong reactions, even in the ranks of the government, after announcing that she would be on the cover of
Playboy
magazine , disguised as Marianne, the allegory of the French Republic.
As if to create a diversion, after the weekly
Marianne
and France 2 revealed in an investigation broadcast on March 29, the management, to say the least, enigmatic of the fund against separatism, also called, a height, "
Marianne fund
".
To discover
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In April 2021, then Minister Delegate for Citizenship, Marlène Schiappa announced the launch of a Marianne fund of 2.5 million euros, aimed at "
financing people and associations who will make speeches to promote the values of the Republic and to fight against separatist discourse, particularly on social networks and online platforms
”.
Misappropriation of public funds?
The journalistic investigation published last week points to an opaque management of this fund, managed by a state body, the Interministerial Committee for the Prevention of Delinquency and Radicalization (CIPDR), headed by the prefect Christian Gravel.
According to our colleagues from
Marianne
, the CIPDR refused, despite their requests, to distribute the list of beneficiaries.
In July 2022, Sonia Backès succeeds Marlène Schiappa at the delegate ministry in charge of Citizenship and finally agrees to send the list.
Of the 17 associations funded, the survey focuses on the main beneficiary, the Union of Physical Education and Military Preparation Societies (USEPPM), whose prefect Christian Gravel has known the leaders for a long time.
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First anomaly: the association would host sports and recreational activities in a beautiful Parisian building, with no obvious link, therefore, with the fight against separatism.
But above all, out of the 266,250 euros in subsidies received, 120,000 euros, in total, would have been paid as salaries to the two leaders of the USEPPM at the time, Mohamed Sifaoui, a journalist of Algerian origin specializing in Islamism, today communication director of the SCO Angers football club, and Cyril Karunagaran, entrepreneur.
Funds that would have been partly donated in the form of "
reimbursements
" after the publication of the survey, according to
Marianne
.
After denying the content of this investigation, Mohamed Sifaoui announced on Twitter "
legal proceedings against all those
» who defame him.
The Secretary of State for Citizenship indicated on March 29 that it had seized the general inspection of the administration of an audit on the question.
The Paris prosecutor's office indicated that a report under article 40 of Christian Gravel's code of criminal procedure was under analysis.
On Tuesday, part of Samuel Paty's family said they were "
particularly shocked
" in a statement on Tuesday.
