🇫🇷Weekly Dispatch - Laws and Vaccinations
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🇫🇷Weekly Dispatch - Laws and Vaccinations
08/10/2023 - A potential Chikirou indictment on the horizon, Far-right organisation Civitas have been dissolved, and the French government is preparing School HPV vaccination campaign
The Weekly Dispatch is your weekly update on major events in French and European politics, published on Sundays to give you the ideal summary of current affairs.
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This week
💰Potential Chikirou indictment on the horizon
🏛️Far-right Civitas have been dissolved
💉French School HPV vaccination campaign
💰Potential Chikirou indictment on the horizon
ther week, another drama in French politics. This time, or once again as some may say, it’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s troupe of far-left firebrands that are in the crosshairs.
Deputy Sophia Chikirou (LFI), an elected official who was one an extremely well paid communications advisory to the party, will soon be heard in court on potential charges of “aggravated fraud”.
Known for her brutal methods, such as cutting Mathilde Panot off half-way through a speech by launching Mélenchon on stage because she didn’t like the content (and reducing her to tears), she’s not known as the kindest of LFI members.
To put it further into context, she has been pulled up previously for moral harassment, notably in the Left Party, where one activist was completely excluded from 2012 campaign activities, and when protesting, was faced with the following response from Chikirou:
“Poor girl... don't you dare write to me again. Being a sex object doesn't give you any rights.”
There are also currently discussions ongoing about whether or not she engaged in homophobic behaviour and statements.
Kindness clearly goes a long way in the far-left, but Karma swings back around hard and fast, and Sophia Chikirou now finding herself in increasingly problematic legal situations.
Anywho, to get to the point, after having been pulled up on several funding issues, including using Mélenchon’s parliamentary funding to travel to Ecuador, the US, Spain and Mexico across several years, and using this funding to not write a book on Bernie Sanders, she’s also part of a long-term investigation into her Mediascope company.
Starting as a preliminary investigation into Mélenchon’s 2017 campaign funding and potential fraud, it has spiralled into a long-term investigation into what Radio France called “surprisingly high billings” of almost 10x the amount of other campaign staff.
Undoubtedly helped by the fact that there appears to be a long-term relationships between the two that is not strictly professional.
She has since been hearings and questionings regarding “fraud, breach of trust, violation of electoral campaign legislation and concealed work” by investigators, which she refuted by stating that “there was no overcharging, Mediascop did not overcharge, there is no personal enrichment, there is no embezzlement of public funds.”
In 2022, there was also an expert report that was submitted to investigating judges that outlined an exaggerated profitability during the 2017 presidential campaign, with Chikirou’s Mediascop company having earned a total of €1,161,000 from Mélenchon’s campaign, from which Chikirou paid herself €135,000 in salaries and dividends.
Add to that an additional payment of €28,200 from Mélenchon, and an additional deposit of €17,850 in a bank account, and you have a very interesting story to share with the financial investigators.
And now it seems that things are going from bad to worse, with increasingly problematic stories arising about her behaviour towards staff, Chikirou will soon be heard by courts for a potential future indictment for “aggravated fraud”.
However, for the time being, we will have to see when this meeting could happen, and when the result will be.
🏛️Far-right Civitas have been dissolved
More news from the legal frontlines, where the Council of Ministers have finally acted to dissolve the fundamentalist catholic organisation, Civitas, after Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin announced the dissolution process back in August 2023.
Calling itself a “traditionalist Catholic lobby group”, this was challenged by a report from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) which classified it as a conspiratorial, “religious nationalist”, and anti-LGBTQ+ organisation.
Add to this the clear far-right lean of the organisation, and the anti-semitism that they yelled through a fog-horn, and you have a great recipe for civilised society not wanting you around anymore.
Government spokesperson, Olivier Véran, had this to say on the organisation:
“Civitas considers human rights as tools for the destruction of Christian civilization, Civitas has organized gatherings in homage to emblematic personalities of collaboration, Civitas ensures the promotion of a hierarchy between French citizens with theses clearly anti-Semites and Islamophobes”
Ultimately, we’re seeing a French government that is aggressively pursuing organisations that attack the foundations of the French republic, which attempt to undermine the key tenants of the state, and which try to increasingly aggravate the various schisms in the country.
However, as you can imagine, a government that acts like this does raise some questions from people even outside of these, and I have had conversations with several people who have raised questions about whether this activity could eventually be abused if a more extreme government were elected, in particular from the far-left or far-right.
However, that is a question for another day, and would require a far more in-depth discussion on the checks and balances of the French state, and the strength of the French legal system against such challenges.
💉French School HPV vaccination campaign
Moving on to some more positive news from this week, the government has now launched a vaccination campaign against genital human papillomavirus (HPV) in secondary schools across France.
Initially a promise by French President Emmanuel Macron in February, the goal of this campaign is the prevent infections of the most common STI, which shows no symptoms, but can cause precancerous lesions, or outright cause cancer in the cervix, Vulva, anus, or more generally, the genitals.
And yes, man can also have HPV, this is not just an STI that affects women despite the myths.
Having come to realise that France. has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Europe, the government decided that it was time to change this, and students will now receive vaccines that prevent up to 90% of infections.
The students who choose to be vaccinated will receive one dose in December, and another in June.
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🇫🇷Weekly Dispatch - Laws and Vaccinations
To be honest, I really dislike and hate organisations as Civitas. They are right-wing collectivists and horrible in their ideas. But the government using force against them ? I cannot support that, simply because I think that free speech is important. Also, secularism is not liberal nor democratic directly. Secularism can be done in brutal and authoritarian ways as well as in the communist regimes during the Cold War.