Can a member buy lingerie or organize afternoons “team-building” at the beach with the envelope of his mandate expenses? To this question, an elected representative of the majority questioned by Release twists: “I pass my turn to save Private Ryan…” The question is however thorny, when one knows the vagueness surrounding the perimeter of the use of this public money reserved for the expenses of parliamentarians. “Some […] may have a mixed character, partly relating to private or professional use and partly to the exercise of the mandate.one can thus read in a document of the National Assembly relating to the expenses of mandate.
What then of the expenses of the LREM deputy for the third constituency of Hérault, Coralie Dubost? The chosen one mentioned above therefore passes her turn to defend her colleague. And for good reason. An internal report from the National Assembly dated spring 2021, and revealed by Mediapart this Friday, list of “expenses that did not fall within the scope” authorized expenses. Like this salty note of 3,300 euros settled in October 2018 on online sales sites such as Private Sale, Place of Trends or Private Showroom. Or those 2,500 euros the following month, spent at Sézane or The Kooples. But also, in 2018, these 500 euros of public money used for lingerie…
Inappropriate spending? “There are mandate outfits and personal outfits […]I do not put the same business in my personal life and in my life of mandate”defends the deputy to Mediapart. All these expenses “have been regularized”, indicates in passing the ex-companion of the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran. Cheeky, the elected official from Hérault explains these costly expenses by blaming a former parliamentary collaborator: “He gave me bad advice, I was stupid […]I am not a cheater”tries the former lawyer.
“It’s forbidden, basta!”
Faced with these abuses reminiscent of the “old world”, the macronist wave elected in June 2017 at the Palais-Bourbon wanted to clean up. As part of the law on the moralization of public life, the allowance representing mandate expenses (IRFM), a monthly expenses envelope of 5,372.80 euros net allocated by the Assembly, was replaced by advances on expenses of an equal amount.
Objective: further verify the expenses incurred, ensuring their traceability. A public list of eligible expenses was thus established for the first time. “The mandate expenses borne by the National Assembly must be reasonable”, thus notes the document quoted above. Random checks are also now carried out every year. Sufficient ? The Dubost case irritates an influential elected representative of the majority. “It’s forbidden, basta! It is unlikely that some would think this is [encore] possible… We all pay the consequences in terms of image, whereas we have never done so much in terms of transparency, control and cleaning of reimbursable expenses”, she shouts at Release.
Beyond the expenditure on clothing, it is the events organized in places that are not conducive to concentration that are mentioned in the report of the Assembly. Evidenced by this bill of 194 euros paid in September 2018 on a hut on a beach in Palavas-les-Flots which rents deckchairs. Or reservations at a restaurant in the Domaine de Verchant, a 5-star “Relais & Château” on the heights of Montpellier. “I made several mandate appointments there”, justifies Dubost. Moments of “working time as team-building as a team”, she adds. For all these costs resulting in “systematic discoveries”the MP has taken out several loans with the Postal Bank, which manages the accounts for the advances of mandate expenses for each parliamentarian.
“Personal Tasks”
All of these irregularities were noted during an audit by the National Assembly’s ethics officer carried out for the years 2018 and 2019. The starting point for this internal investigation is a “collective alert”says Mediapart, emanating from several collaborators of the deputy. Since her election in 2017, the latter has hired no less than 15 people to work alongside her. An abnormally high number.
The report thus points to “inappropriate requests” made by Coralie Dubost with her team, for “tasks within the personal sphere or on the edge of the professional and personal spheres regularly requested, and not falling within the recurring, normal and expected attributions of a collaborator’s position”. Its former employees at the National Assembly also denounced a “messy and confusing management of time”, and a dialogue “very difficult” with their MP. Asked about this point, Coralie Dubost defends herself in particular with this argument: “I gave a lot of people who weren’t in politics a chance.”