For the general assembly of Wikimedia France held this Saturday, November 11, there was no shortage of subjects of tension within the association, national chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation (which hosts the large collaborative online encyclopedia Wikipedia). First of all, several articles published in Le Point and Factuel, which take up the revelations made in 2022 by Le Figaro about an association campaigning for the inclusion of gender on Wikipedia, Les sans pagEs (LSP). The latter initially sought to create Wikipedia pages about famous women, to compensate for the "gender gap" on the encyclopedia. And seeks to increase the visibility of LGBT struggles on Wikipedia, through its "Wiki Loves Pride" project.
A "transphobic" and "slanderous" press campaign, says in an internal message Mathis Benguigui, one of the candidates for the position of administrator of Wikimedia France. And "whose barely concealed objective is to influence the course of the GA," adds in another email the executive director of Wikimedia France, Rémy Gerbet. Which urged Wikimedia administrators to "be very careful because the offensive may not be over," referring to questions we addressed this week to the president of Wikimedia France, Capucine-Marin Dubroca-Voisin.
Pay attention to what? In any case, Le Figaro has indeed collected the concerns of several members of the Wikipedia community, in which the Wikimedia France association plays a major role, since it imagines, accompanies and finances many projects of enrichment and development of the French-speaking part of the online encyclopedia. Concerns about the power and influence of a small group gathered behind the ideological orientations of the "sans pagEs" (which promotes at all costs the inclusion of gender and writing conventions desired by LGBT associations: for example, the moral report of Wikimédia France is written in inclusive writing). A small group that has all power over the decisions taken by Wikimédia France, and has moreover dragged the accounts of the association into an alarming drift.
A deficit of €243,000
Despite a significant increase in its revenues, due in particular to the doubling of public subsidies from which it benefits (now more than €100,000), Wikimédia France has a deficit of €243,000 this year. For a total budget of one and a half million, financed partly by donations (almost half of the revenues) and partly by a grant allocated by the Wikimedia Foundation (a third of the revenues), which also lives on donations.
A situation that the association has managed to mop up thanks to cash reserves, and that president Capucine-Marin Dubroca-Voisin does not seem to consider worrying: "Our resources took a little longer to increase," she explains to Le Figaro, "which is often the case in growth phases. We've been able to dip into our reserves, and we plan to get back to breakeven.
»'I should have resigned'
A façade of enthusiasm? The presentation of the financial situation to the administrators of Wikimédia France surprised everyone, and raised significant doubts about the current governance of the administration. "I'm not fully over it," the vice president said in a private exchange when the state of the deficit was revealed to him. "I should have resigned because I was not heard," the treasurer exasperated. However, this is not enough to dampen the optimism of the president, who insists: "the development of new projects is very good news for the association, which is gaining momentum".
However, this deficit does not owe much to the new projects. But first of all, there are several gross errors, such as the failure to report a time savings account for its employees in the association's accounts. Another awkwardness was that a leasing contract for the acquisition of gigantic printers signed a few years ago seemed to be ill-suited to the real needs of the association, which returned the equipment and had to pay the amount due for the remaining years. "With over €21,000 in printing costs, it looks like they printed all of Wikipedia in one fell swoop!" a veteran contributor to the encyclopedia grumbled in a squeak. Finally, there are other expenses that some directors consider to be excessive. Two weekends of "team-building" in beautiful hotels, a "Wikicamp" with results judged disappointing internally, given the thirty or so people who attended...
The accounting deficit is also due to the fact that a subsidy has only been partially used and is carried forward to the next financial year. But also, therefore, to an unprecedented increase in expenses, which Capucine-Marin Dubroca-Voisin is trying to justify by hiring new people. First of all, forgetting to mention that the amount of expense reports within the association has exploded. This is why the administrators of Wikimédia France sent a reprimand to the executive director, Rémy Gerbet, and a warning to the accountant Jonathan Balima. And wanted to review the rules concerning the authorization to incur expenses: until now, employees could spend up to €10,000 without referring it to the treasurer.
As for recruitment, the association has not carried out any major recruitment for its strategic development this year, and faced with a difficult accounting situation, has even chosen to temporarily freeze the hiring of an advocacy officer, after the departure of the one who held the position until now. Several hires have certainly taken place: Capucine-Marin Dubroca-Voisin mentions, for example, in Le Figaro the recruitment of an employee to carry out projects related to Vikidia, the children's Wikipedia. However, it seems that the secondment of this employee for the needs of Vikidia is financially compensated by this association, which has a separate accounting identity...
On the other hand, two other recruitment processes alarmed part of the board of directors, those of Amélie Charles (training and evaluation officer) and Florian Cuny (developer). In the case of the latter, recruitment at the end of the internship had initially been decided by the Director of Human Resources without the approval of the Board of Directors, which balked and wished to take back control of the recruitment process. It then appeared that the candidate's internship report did not mention his vision of the tool on which he was recruited, the "Lingua Libre" project, which allows you to listen to audio recordings on the encyclopedia. Faced with difficulties, Rémy Gerbet was therefore forced to launch a normal recruitment procedure (especially since Florian Cuny was not unanimously accepted), while ensuring that the latter was indeed recruited at the end of the process: "We are crossing our fingers that we will have very few candidates, which will surely be the case given the type of contract and the salary offered. We can also try to shorten the process with a fairly short application period," he wrote in an internal message explaining his strategy.
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The influence of the "sans pagEs"
However, if this way of proceeding annoys part of the Board of Directors, it is because Florian Cuny, who has just been elected administrator at the AGM on November 11, is also a member of the association of the "sans pagEs". Another director elected to the AGM, Alex Sirac, is also a member of the "sans pagEs". As was Capucine-Marin Dubroca-Voisin, who was even its treasurer. As are Antoine Srun, secretary of the association, and Cédric Tabouriech, another administrator. As for Rémy Gerbet, he has also supported the "sans pagEs" on many occasions, as when he defends Natacha Rault (employee of Wikimédia France and founder of the "sans pagEs") by justifying the partnership with the association, when it was questioned by part of the Wikipedia community for having "recruited" contributors on LGBT sites. The latter had to come to support the positions of the "sans pagEs" in the discussion spaces of the encyclopedia.
For the record, after the publication last year of an article in Le Figaro implicating Natacha Rault, Rémy Gerbet saw fit to offer her a bouquet of flowers worth €90 from the association's funds, to show her his support... A decision cited internally as an iconic example of a global management where cronyism and ideological connections take precedence over the general interest of the online encyclopedia.