After press articles on management and the role during the 2017 campaign of LFI MP Sophia Chikirou, her colleague Danielle Simonnet judges that the party must “first and foremost” be faithful to its convictions.
LFI MP Danielle Simonnet considered it necessary on Thursday to AFP for her colleague Sophia Chikirou to give “explanations”, after press articles on her management and her role during the 2017 presidential campaign.
“I am not naive, I know that since the searches (at the headquarters of La France insoumise in 2018, Editor’s note) there is also a desire to attack the FI and all those who embody it. “Explanations from Sophia and the movement must be given to all past and present activists who are involved in these campaigns and in the movement,” declared Danielle Simonnet.
The MP said this internally, during a meeting of the LFI group in the Assembly on Tuesday, during which her colleague Alexis Corbière went in the same direction.
A judicial investigation targets the MP
An article from World reported on Tuesday that a judicial investigation targeted Sophia Chikirou for suspicion of overbilling for services to LFI during the 2017 presidential campaign and mentioned a possible hearing by the courts soon.
Sophia Chikirou disputed these accusations in 2018, and did not wish to respond to the press on Wednesday. “Me, I speak when I want, where I want, and with whom I want,” she replied during a press conference at the Assembly.
According to a France 2 investigation broadcast on Thursday, the Paris MP, whose teams are experiencing a significant turnover, would also have called other colleagues “shitholes” when she headed the Media editorial team.
“Do not repeat the same mistakes as in the Adrien Quatennens episode”
“We have principles, it is the fight against moral harassment, all collaborators and former collaborators of any MP must know that our group must be at their side and our movement too,” said Danielle Simonnet at the ‘AFP.
Danielle Simonnet also called for “not to reproduce the same errors as in the Adrien Quatennens episode”, when some of the leaders had rushed to the aid of the MP, who admitted to domestic violence.
“We must first and foremost be faithful to our convictions, to our program, to our principles, to our ethics. It is based on this that we must determine ourselves, even when one of the ours is in question,” she said.
Manuel Bompard defends Sophia Chikirou
More generally, the Paris MP castigated the “brutality” of the comments of several LFI leaders, including Sophia Chikirou, against members of other parties of the left-wing Nupes union, which has been experiencing tensions for several months . “It is not through very brutal little sentences that we facilitate the preservation of this unity,” she pointed out.
A sign of the tensions that reign within the rebellious group, Danielle Simonnet was accused by LFI deputy Nadège Abomangoli of “targeting two racialized women” for having criticized tweets from Danièle Obono, also elected LFI, and Sophia Chikirou .
Questioned on Public Senate on Thursday, the coordinator of the movement Manuel Bompard defended Sophia Chikirou, affirming that the accusations of Le Monde were false. “It is completely false and transparency already exists, since Sophia Chikirou is a deputy, she therefore filed a file with the High Authority for Transparency and Public Life in which her income and remuneration are present,” he argued.