“The opacity and casualness led to the fiasco”, denounces the Senate inquiry committee

“The lack of rigor, opacity and flippancy led to the fiasco” of the Marianne Fund against separatism, concluded, Thursday, July 6, the Senate commission of inquiry devoted to this controversial device. “The report is clear on the drift of what we call ‘a political coup'”asserted during a press conference the rapporteur of the commission, the senator (LR) Jean-François Husson.

This fund, endowed with 2.5 million euros, was created in April 2021 by Marlène Schiappa, then Minister Delegate for Citizenship. He was born a few months after the assassination of history professor Samuel Paty by a young radicalized, in order to finance on the internet “counter-speech” to radical Islam.

“We have the feeling that the Marianne Fund was designed as a major communication operation” by the minister, observed Jean-François Husson again. There “promise” inherent in this device, “was not kept, which is fully the political responsibility of the minister”he continued.

A “lacunate” control

For Senator LR, “the control of the project carriers proved to be incomplete”. “Before the press revelations, no control seems to have been carried out to control the work of the associations” financed, he denounced.

As for Marlene Schiappa, “We interviewed her for a long time (…) I have never seen her propose tangible elements to our commission of inquiry. She had a lot of memory loss, there are certain speeches which are appalling to my point of view, and distressing”crushed Jean-François Husson.

For the rapporteur, some of the associations that have benefited from the fund “did a real job”, but this is not the case for the two main ones. In the end, the “label” of the Marianne Fund “become a real burden”even “a ball attached to the allegory of the Republic”according to him.