the Senate Finance Committee unanimously calls for a commission of inquiry

Wish granted for Claude Raynal. The PS president of the Senate finance committee saw his institution, on Wednesday May 3, approve his call to launch a commission of inquiry into the Marianne fund, created in 2021 by Marlène Schiappa to fight against separatism.

The creation of this commission of inquiry must still be formally recorded by the conference of presidents of the Senate, which meets on Tuesday, May 9, then approved the next day by a vote of the senators. It will then have important prerogatives for three months: the people it wishes to interview are thus required to respond to the summons and take an oath.

Doubts about the fund’s objectives

“The government, of course, will respond in full transparency”, assured Tuesday before the deputies the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin. This commission of inquiry, whose rapporteur will be Senator LR Jean-François Husson, should look into “the creation of the Marianne fund, the selection of projects and the allocation of subsidies, the control of their execution and the results obtained with regard to the objectives of the fund”.

The Marianne Fund, a project to promote “Republic values”, is controversial after a series of revelations. According to a joint investigation by Marianne and France 2, the main beneficiary structure of the funds, to the tune of 355,000 euros, would only have fed a website and publications with very little follow on social networks. Some 120,000 euros were used to pay two of its ex-leaders. Mediapart then revealed that several left-wing personalities, including the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo (PS), had been denigrated in content posted online by another structure benefiting from the fund, which obtained 330,000 euros.