The Paris MP has been singled out by several journalistic investigations for her brutal management and suspicions of embezzlement during the 2017 presidential campaign. On the LFI side, few people dare to speak publicly against this close friend of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Insoumise France is going through a new crisis. LFI MP Sophia Chikirou is in turmoil, accused by several journalistic investigations of using brutal methods with her collaborators and within her political group. This very close collaborator of Jean-Luc Mélenchon must also be summoned soon, according to The world, with a view to possible indictment for “aggravated fraud”, for suspicions of overbilling for services to LFI during the 2017 presidential campaign. Accusations that the Paris MP contests.
>> “Additional investigation”: Sophia Chikirou, the queen of spades by Jean-Luc Mélenchon
In the program “Complément d’investigation”, broadcast Thursday October 5 on France 2, testimonies multiply to describe the abusive behavior of this communicator who has been whispering in Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s ear for fifteen years. A journalist who frequented the rebellious manager when she headed Le Média testifies anonymously of“a certain number of unspeakable things”, people leaving crying, discomfort, screams in Sophia Chikirou’s office. There is, for example, this reaction to a request from journalists, who want Le Média to make its “mea culpa” in a press release after the dissemination of false information: “They do it, sign it and shove it up their ass, these bunch of shitheads.”
Requests for “explanations”
Since the publication of these revelations, a few voices have been raised within LFI to demand accountability. LFI MP Pascale Martin called for “explanations” to his colleague Sophia Chikirou on his “practice” within the movement, after the investigation published Tuesday by The world. The daily reveals exchanges by the rebellious MP on the LFI group’s Telegram loop. She would describe certain colleagues as “bitches of bitches”. To a rebel who alerts him against “hunting enemies from within”she would have replied: “You are right. (…) I prefer to wait on the edge of the river to see their bodies pass by.”
Pascale Martin was joined on Thursday by LFI MP Danielle Simonnet. “I’m not naive, I know that since the searches [au siège de La France insoumise en 2018] there is also a desire to attack the FI and all those who embody it. Nevertheless, explanations from Sophia and the movement must be given to all past and present activists who are involved in these campaigns and in the movement., declared the Parisian MP on Thursday to AFP. During a meeting of the LFI group in the Assembly, his colleague Alexis Corbière went in the same direction.
“We have principles. It’s the fight against moral harassment, all collaborators and former collaborators of any MP must know that our group must be at their side and our movement too.”
Danielle Simonetto AFP
Some sympathizers have also come out of silence, like the psychoanalyst Gérard Miller, who answered questions from “Complementary investigation”. “For the voter and fellow traveler of La France insoumise that I have been for a dozen years, the personal excesses of Sophia Chikirou are not an invention of big capital and its allies, and to deny them in the name of a higher cause now seems to me to harm all the rebels”he wrote on the social network.
“Loyalty as the cardinal value”
Contacted by franceinfo, several rebellious deputies choose to kick in. “I’m afraid I don’t have much to tell you, especially since I haven’t watched ‘Further Investigation'”, evacuates a parliamentarian. An omerta which could be explained in particular by the proximity between Sophia Chikirou and the former presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “In our political group, there is a deference towards her, because Jean-Luc has already eliminated people who were not nice to her. In our organization, everyone knows that that causes exclusion”, explains a rebel in “Additional investigation”. The France 2 program also notes that the rare heavyweights of the movement who agreed to participate in the investigation chose to speak on condition of anonymity.
In fact, several episodes contributed to creating unease within the rebellious group. During the return to the National Assembly of Adrien Quatennens, suspended from his group for four months after his conviction for domestic violence, Sophia Chikirou sets the tone within her group, by standing up to applaud him. “What was painful for me was to see members of our group, not the least of them, surround Adrien and applaud him, when it seemed to me that this was not what we had collectively decided”then declared LFI MP Clémentine Autain on the set of “Daily”. “The case of the Quatennens affair says a lot about Sophia Chikirou, it says that loyalty is the cardinal value in Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s teams”confides to “Additional investigation” Georges Kuzmanovic, a former member of La France insoumise.
“Loyalty takes precedence over ideology.”
Georges Kuzmanovic, former advisor to Jean-Luc Mélenchonto “Further investigation”
The reactions of several LFI executives to the latest revelations confirm this thesis. MP Bastien Lachaud thus preferred to attack, on the social network to the work of “Complément d’investigation” journalists: “Hollow in its content, hackneyed in its springs (…) old accusations dismantled a thousand times, prosecution witnesses peddling gossip, gutter methods…” For his part, the coordinator of the movement Manuel Bompard wanted to put into perspective the comments made by Sophia Chikirou in the internal loops of LFI. “Slightly harsh terms, said in a private setting, he assures. His words must have exceeded his thoughts. It will have absolutely no political consequences.”
“There is no surprise, everyone knows that Sophia may not be nice, like any comrade”sought to de-dramatize in Release LFI deputy Hadrien Clouet. The latter also returned to the reference to the collaborationist Jacques Doriot used by Sophia Chikirou against the communist Fabien Roussel: “It’s a failure, not the result of a strategy. But whatever happens, we stick together. You know that it’s a characteristic of melenchony. Even when we’re wrong.” A block which seems to be cracking slightly in light of the latest revelations.