the Senate gives the green light for a parliamentary commission of inquiry

It was expected, it’s now done. The Senate voted on Wednesday May 10 by a show of hands to assign the prerogatives of a commission of inquiry to the Finance Commission, in order to carry out an information mission on the Marianne Fund, launched in 2021 by Marlène Schiappa to fight against separatism.

The Finance Committee will thus have important powers for three months: the people it wishes to interview are required to respond to the summons and take an oath.

The action of the committee questioned

It will begin its work next week with the hearing on Tuesday of the prefect Christian Gravel, secretary general of the interministerial committee for the prevention of delinquency and radicalization (CIPDR), and magistrate Jean-Pierre Laffite, deputy secretary general of the CIPDR.

The CIPDR coordinates the action of the ministries and the use of the budgetary means devoted to the policy of prevention of delinquency and radicalization. As such, the Secretary General supervises the administrative management of the fund.

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 Marianne fund benefited from an endowment of 355,000 euros which would have only fed a website and publications with little follow on social networks. Some 120,000 euros were also used to pay two of its former leaders.

Mediapart then claimed that several left-wing personalities had been denigrated in content posted online by another structure financed by the fund, Rebuild the common, which obtained 330,000 euros.