Thousands of dollars spent on clothes, lingerie and beach getaways at taxpayer expense. Coralie Dubost, MP LREM, was pinned in a confidential report submitted to the ethics officer of the National Assembly in the spring of 2021, for the management of her collaborators and her mandate expense reports, reveals Mediapart.
“I’m not a cheater”
The member of the third constituency of Hérault would have multiplied the fabulous expenses in 2018 and 2019, by digging into her envelope of costs allocated by the Assembly. This famous envelope of 5,373 euros is, initially, intended to settle various expenses related exclusively to the function of the elected official. But, according to the report of his warrant expense review, a number of purchases “did not fall within the scope” of allowable spending. The elected representative assures Mediapart that these expenses have since been “regularized”.
According to Coralie Dubost, her former collaborator would have simply “badly advised”. “I was stupid (…), I’m not a cheater,” she defended herself to the online investigation site. His expenses were examined following an internal investigation by the Élysée’s anti-harassment unit, launched after a “collective alert” from his former collaborators.
2,000 euros worth of clothes per month
In early 2019, MP LREM faced an overdraft exceeding 7,000 euros. To settle her slate, she had to “take out a personal loan”. These costs included in particular “monthly clothing expenses within a range of 1,500 to 2,000 euros”, according to the report, finalized in April 2021, consulted by Mediapart. The elected official would, for example, have used more than 500 euros of public money in lingerie purchases. In October 2018, she even spent more than 3,300 euros on clothes, especially on online sales sites.
bills by the sea
“There are mandate outfits and personal outfits […]I do not put the same business in my personal life and in my life of mandate”, defended Coralie Dubost.
Finally, the deputy LREM would also have spent expenses in leisure spaces. A bill of 194 euros was settled at Bonaventure, a restaurant on the beach in Pavalas-les-Flots which rents deckchairs for the day. She also made reservations at the restaurant La Plage, located by the pool, in the Verchant area (5 stars). Coralie Dubost justifies “mandate appointments” and “working times like team building as a team”.