🤝Weekly Dispatch - Solidarity in all forms
🤝Weekly Dispatch - Solidarity in all forms
07 May 2023 - Europe Day is coming, Two deputies save the life of a civil servant, Schiappa’s Marianne fund under investigation, and Valérie Pécresse attacks the regional financial solidarity system
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
🇪🇺Europe Day is coming!
🚑Two deputies save the life of a civil servant
💸Schiappa’s Marianne fund under investigation
🤝Valérie Pécresse attacks regional financial solidarity system
🇪🇺Europe Day is coming!
One of our favourite days of the year, Europe Day, is coming up this Tuesday 9th May.
Marking the anniversary of the historic Schuman Declaration that outlined his idea for a new form of European cooperation, which would make war between European nations unthinkable, he is considered the man who proposed what has now become the European Union.
While you can expect
to bring you an in-depth explanation of Europe Day, what it represents, and why it matters, I want to hear from all of you about what the European Union means to you and why you think it matters.So, comment below, email me, dm me on Twitter, or respond to either my note or subscriber chat!
🚑Two deputies save the life of a civil servant
Let’s start this week’s dispatch with a good news story.
This Thursday saw an incident where a civil servant working at the Palais Bourbon (the venue of the Assemblée National) suffered a cardiac arrest in the hemicycle during the day dedicated to texts submitted by the Parti Communiste Français.
Thankfully, the civil servant found himself in very good hands as two deputies stepped up to the plate to quickly resuscitate the individual: volunteer firefighter Julien Rancoule (Rassemblement National) and doctor Stéphanie Rist (Renaissance).
Having managed the immediate care, the civil servant was then taken care of by the firefighters of the Assemblé and, subsequently, the emergency medical services until they could be evacuated to a nearby hospital.
The session was then suspended, with President of the French National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet (Renaissance) asking for the deputies to keep the civil servant and their family in their thoughts and highlighting that “at such times the National Assembly is strong in the members who compose it”.
Marine le Pen echoed this sentiment in a tweet the next morning:
“Emotion after the serious discomfort of a civil servant of the Assembly during the night session. In this ordeal, I send him all my support and wish him a speedy recovery. Thanks to our two colleagues @J_Rancoule and @stephanie_rist who came to his rescue.”
💸Schiappa’s Marianne fund under investigation
Unfortunately, the good news ends there, as the Marianne Fund scandal is starting to heat up.
For those of you who haven’t heard of this, the Marianne Fund was created by Minister Marlène Schiappa (Renaissance) following the tragic assassination of Professor Samuel Paty and was intended to be used to fight against separatism in France.
As Schiappa herself said at the time, the Marianne Fund, launched with around €2.5 million of funding, was intended to “[Finance] people and associations who will make speeches to promote the values of the Republic and to fight against separatist speeches, in particular on social networks and platforms online."
For the francophones amongst you, you can see an interview of this on BFM TV below:
Following a nine-month investigation by France 2’s “L'Œil du 20 heures" and Marianne on where the money was going, as well as another investigation by investigative journalists Mediapart, there were large amounts of the money going to organisations that did not match the actual goal of the fund.
Even worse, the Mediapart investigation claimed that one organisation funded used this money for political purposes, "disseminating political content against opponents of Emmanuel Macron during the presidential and legislative campaigns.”
So, now we get to the current situation.
The National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) announced this Thursday 4 May that it was opening a judicial investigation based on suspicions of “embezzlement of public funds” concerning the management of the Marianne fund.
These have been supported by the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo (Parti Socialiste) and the President of the La France Insoumise group in the Assemblée, Mathilde Panot (La France Insoumise), who themselves sent two other reports.
Panot, for her part, stated that “the facts are serious and question the responsibility of Marlène Schiappa in the creation, use and control of these public funds"
The accusations of opaque management are putting Marlène Schiappa under intense pressure, and she has previously come out strongly criticised the “slander” she was being targeted with while also threatening legal action against those engaging in this:
“I don't wish anyone to be the target of slander as I have been for the past few weeks. I have read & heard many untruths about the #FondsMarianne - going as far as defamation. It's unbearable and I won't let it happen.”
In the above thread, Schiappa defends herself on the “opaque management” of the fund by stating that the list of projects was hidden for the safety of those managing them due to them being involved in “the fight against radicalization.”
She also defended herself against accusations that she has subsidized “friends” or engaged in embezzlement. She also defended against accusations of political favouritism by noting that those funded by the Marianne Fund had criticised her and President Macron, not only opposition politicians.
Ultimately, it's difficult to make a prognosis of the situation here without going into the intimate financial details of each file and funding. Schiappa herself has said that it is up to the courts and auditors to declare exactly what happened with these funds.
Needless to say, no matter the situation, we always have to operate on the assumption of “innocent until proven guilty”, and it is not up to us to make
🤝Valérie Pécresse attacks the regional financial solidarity system
Everyone’s favourite Républicain is back in the news this week, and it’s yet another judicial investigation.
The President of the Ile-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, has taken legal action against the regional financial solidarity system, arguing that the current interregional equalization system is disadvantageous to Île-de-France residents.
The system, as it stands, is intended to promote solidarity between the regions so that those most able to support other regions with financing pay into a pot that is used to help less financially able regions.
However, Pécresse is arguing that the Île-de-France region is being taken for a ride and has the administrative court of Paris to judge the legality of a decree that set the contribution of her region at €1.85 million.
According to the Director General of Services in Île-de-France, David Bonneau, the argument goes that while they have no problem with the concept itself, their region has effectively funded 97% of the funds paid to others since it was launched in 2013.
There are also two main arguments against the current system:
The purpose of the system is to ensure that the revenues of all regions evolve at the same rate. However, Ile-de-France has progressed slower at several periods (17% between 2007-2009 and 2017-2019) than other regions (average of 39%), with revenue per capita being claimed as being lower as well
The current system doesn’t accurately consider the needs of the Ile-de-France community
Setting aside the fact that I'm not yet an economist, there is an argument that because Ile-de-France represents around one-third of the GDP of the French state, it will always have a lesser rate of financial growth than smaller regions with more room for growth.
However, it’ll be interesting to see where this goes, and if one of you dear readers knows more about this system than I do, let me know! I would love to read more on this from an expert who understands this better than I do.
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I did not know that in France there is a similar debate as in Sweden and Germany regarding "soli" or solidarity taxation and redistribution politics. Do you have any views about how the system should function?