The persons called to audition will be required to respond to the summons and take an oath. A commission of inquiry will be set up, after the approval of the Senate on Wednesday, for a period of three months, to conduct a fact-finding mission on the Marianne Fund launched in 2021 by Marlène Schiappa to fight against separatism.

The commission of inquiry, whose rapporteur will be Senator LR Jean-François Husson, should examine "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".

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 the magistrate Jean-Pierre Laffite, deputy secretary general of the CIPDR. The CIPDR coordinates the action of the ministries and the use of budgetary resources devoted to the policy of prevention of delinquency and radicalization and as such, the General Secretariat is in charge of the administrative management of the fund.

Revelations in the media

The Marianne Fund, a project to promote the "values of the Republic", was launched in April 2021 by Marlène Schiappa – then Minister Delegate for Citizenship – after the assassination of Professor Samuel Paty. The affair began at the end of March with revelations from the weekly Marianne and France 2.

According to their investigation, the main beneficiary of the fund, the USEPPM association, received an endowment of 355,000 euros that would have only fed a website and publications little followed on social networks. Some 120,000 euros were also used to pay two of its former leaders.

The Mediapart website then revealed that several left-wing personalities had been denigrated in content posted online by another structure financed by the fund, "Reconstruire le commun", which obtained 330,000 euros.

  • Politics
  • Marlène Schiappa
  • Senate
  • Board of Inquiry
  • Inquiry