This is the first time he defends himself. Prefect Christian Gravel, who resigned from the Interministerial Committee for the Prevention of Delinquency and Radicalization (CIPDR) after a report denouncing his management of the Marianne fund, wrote a response to this report published at the end of the week on the ministry’s website inside.
The publication of such a response to a report from the General Inspection of Administration (IGA) is very rare. However, in emphasis, the ministry warns that this is a “personal position” of Christian Gravel “which does not commit the Ministry of the Interior and Overseas Territories”. In his 30-page response, Prefect Gravel, who from October 2020 to June 2023 directed the CIPDR, the organization in charge of the Marianne fund, explains point by point on the accusations contained in the IGA report from the beginning of June, to refute them.
The words of Marlène Schiappa sufficiently relayed?
He considers it “damaging that the mission (of the IGA)” was “not able to take into consideration the hearings in the Senate” of Marlène Schiappa, ex-minister who created the Marianne fund after the shock caused by the assassination of Samuel Paty, and his then chief of staff. The various players in the Marianne fund were heard by a Senate commission of inquiry.
The June IGA report focused on the grant awarded to the USEPPM (Union of Physical Education and Military Preparation Societies), the main recipient of the fund.
Each file submitted to a selection committee
Initially endowed with 2.5 million euros, the Marianne fund aimed to finance associations promoting speeches promoting the values of the Republic to fight against “separatism” and bring, particularly on social networks, contradiction to the radical Islam.
As during his hearing before the Senate commission of inquiry, Christian Gravel ensures that the USEPPM project led by Mohamed Sifaoui had benefited from validation from Marlène Schiappa’s office. Likewise, he repeats that each file submitted to the selection committee was “the subject of detailed discussions with the cabinet” of the minister. “Over the entire process, upstream and downstream”, the IGA noted “a serious deficiency in the diligence expected of the senior management of a central administration service responsible for ensuring the proper allocation of funds public”.
He resigned from his position on the Interministerial Committee for the Prevention of Delinquency
To this, the prefect responds “to refute any negligence in the exercise of his functions”. The former secretary general of the CIPDR also reaffirms that the decision not to award a grant to SOS Racisme within the framework of the Marianne fund was “taken by the minister’s office”.
To the resignation of Christian Gravel was added in July the ousting of the government of Marlène Schiappa thanks to the reshuffle. On the judicial side, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) opened a judicial investigation at the beginning of May for suspicion of embezzlement of public funds in the management of the Marianne fund.