“We are on issues that are the subject of a judicial inquiry. I do not have the support of a lawyer. It seems difficult to me to be in this exercise without having minimum guarantees of defense and protection. » Faced with the senators of the commission of inquiry into the Marianne fund, Wednesday June 7, the embarrassment of the prefect of Orne, Sébastien Jallet, former chief of staff of Marlène Schiappa when the latter was minister delegate for citizenship, is palpable.
The day after the resignation, following a damning report from the general administration inspectorate (IGA), of the prefect Christian Gravel of the management of the interministerial committee for the prevention of delinquency and radicalization (CIPDR), responsible for managing this fund, the case took a turn “more serious than what we have heard”, as noted on Public Sénat by Senator Jean-François Husson (Les Républicains, Meurthe-et-Moselle), rapporteur for the commission of inquiry.
Above all, it takes a more political turn, with a lingering question: what role did Mr.me Schiappa in the allocation of the two largest grants from this fund – created in 2021 following the terrorist assassination, on October 16, 2020, of Professor Samuel Paty – to two unknown associations and to practices which will prove to be more than doubtful?
“A reserve from the minister”
The IGA report judged that the minister had “erased from the process, once past the official launch” of the fund, and returned the bulk of the responsibility to Mr. Gravel. A point immediately put forward by the now Secretary of State for Associative Life, who was to receive the press on Wednesday to discuss the subject. But the appointment was canceled at the last moment – officially because she was detained in Brussels – a few minutes after the end of the hearing of her former chief of staff.
The latter’s testimony, under oath, before the senators, was in fact embarrassing for Ms.me Schiappa: Sébastien Jallet, answering the specific questions of the commission, could only recognize that, contrary to what the Secretary of State has always said, she did not stay away from the selections of the fund . As Mr. Jallet admitted, she personally chose to retort, after the official selection of the winners, an association which had been selected to receive 100,000 euros in subsidies. “We have a reservation on this association from the Minister, due to a fairly old history of relations and a questioning by the press of a member of the association vis-à-vis the Minister”recognized his former chief of staff.
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