Before speaking, he put his hands on the armrests of his chair and he gave a great impulse, swinging his chest forward. As if he had to jump into the water. Then, with a sharp and precise gesture, he pulled on the jacket of his midnight blue three-piece suit, to erase the wrinkles. In the Senate, this Thursday, June 15, the journalist Mohamed Sifaoui is preparing to testify before the commission of inquiry set up following the alleged irregularities of the Marianne fund. Launched by Marlène Schiappa, then Minister for Citizenship, this envelope of 2.5 million euros was created in the spring of 2021 in response to the assassination of Professor Samuel Paty on October 16, 2020, with the aim of financing a response. to separatist discourse on social networks.
Principal beneficiary of the fund, the Franco-Algerian is suspected of having used, through an obscure association, the Federative Union of Physical Education and Military Preparation Societies (USEPPM), a large part of this money to pay himself and his partner, a curious businessman, Cyril Karunagaran, owner of a small luxury leather goods company. Two days earlier, on June 13, the police came knocking on the journalist’s door, around 6 a.m., for a search as part of a judicial investigation opened by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office for “negligent embezzlement of public funds”. , “breach of trust” and “illegal taking of interests”.
In front of the senators, rather than seeking to defend himself, Mohamed Sifaoui chose to attack. Taking hold of an invisible red rag that no one has yet bothered to shake, he bangs his horns, right and left. A first spade addressed to the environmentalist senator Daniel Breuiller, who, to sum up the affair of the Marianne fund, had denounced “The Republic of Friends”. “The first cronyism that should be denounced is that which links your political current, that of the ecologists, to Islamism, and this in several cities of France”, uncheck Mohamed Sifaoui.
He then denounces the report ” pathetic “ of the general administration inspectorate “instructed exclusively on the charge, with approximations, serious insinuations and lies”. Then, carried away by his momentum, he continues his indictment against “generally poor ossified media systems that fuel populism”. Convinced of his innocence, he says he is tied to a media stake. He saw himself as an expiatory victim condemned, in advance, for his fight against political Islamism.
You have 91.54% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.